"When?"
"Perhaps tonight. It's possible he will be at Tariq Khalil's party. Another novelty." Her eyes darkened at memory of the slight. "I should have performed but would be welcome as a guest and you can be my escort Why not?" She smiled, anger forgotten. "Amuse yourself, Earl, while I change."
The room reflected its owner; delicate, fussy, spoiled. Dumarest moved around, looking, halting before an image which sat grimacing with endless pain. Another depicted a scene in the same mode; a couple this time locked in an embrace which blended ecstasy with torment. Gifts from Yunus?
He moved to the player and changed the recording, picking a crystal at random, the throbbing of strings echoing his choice. The air was warm, tainted with a peculiar odor and he guessed that spices had been burned to provide a pungent incense. From the bedroom he could hear small sounds as the woman busied herself. Moving away from the door he reached the masked window. A button cleared the panel.
Under the blazing light of massed stars the desert looked like a frozen, silver sea.
It was calm now, the air free of wind, the undulating dunes locked in a transient stasis. One which held a unique beauty for never again could the sand take on that same exactitude. The shape and flow of the ridges would be changed, the shallow dells, the peaked mounds, the long, sensuous slopes which seemed to reach to eternity. Then, at the limit of vision, looming like a toothed ridge against the glow of the sky, rested a long range of uneven mounds.
"The Gouhen Hills," said Ellain. "In time they too will be desert."
She had come to stand at his side, moving soundlessly on naked feet, her hair lifted and bound with a golden fillet the scarlet strands drawn up tight against the round perfection of her skull. A thick, fluffy robe enveloped her and her face, wiped free of cosmetics, looked startlingly young in its innocence.
A trick of the light; the silver glow from beyond the window was kind. Or an inner relaxation so that now, for the first time, Dumarest saw her as she really was. A child trapped in a woman's body and forced to live in a harsh, adult world. Then, looking beyond her, he saw the images and their depiction of endless pain. No child-or if so one who had more than her share of childish cruelty. He recalled the faces he had seen edging the arenas in which he had fought-they too, at times, could look innocent and young.
"It can be beautiful at times," she whispered, looking at the desert. "The storms come and the world changes and everything vibrates to the fury of the wind. You can hear it screaming as if it's a thing alive. Watching it, you can imagine eyes, a mouth, hands reaching to rend and tear, claws to rip. A destroyer awful and magnificent in its terrible power."
"Wind," said Dumarest. "Sand and dust. There's nothing else."
"No?"
"Creatures, perhaps." He thought of the sannak. "An adapted form of life."
"And ghosts," she said. "Never forget the ghosts. I dream of them at times; those caught in the storms, the others condemned to die in them. The old, the helpless, those so deeply in debt there can be no prospect of them ever getting clear. Those who refused to pay-have you never thought of that, Earl? Wondered how they are dealt with? The Cinque have found a way."
Murder-to expose anyone unprotected to the winds would be nothing else. Legalized, perhaps, justified on the grounds of logic, but murder just the same.
"That's why I've got to get away," said Ellain. The mask of the window rasped across the pane as she pressed the button. "I dream of it at times. Of being out in a storm, lost, hopeless, doomed. To be flayed and, still living, to crawl while the flesh is stripped from my bones. To be skinned, blinded, turned into a thing of horror. God! Earl, I can't bear to think of it!"
"Then don't!"
"To be driven out, left to wait, to watch." Her voice rose, became a scream. "To-Earl! Don't let it happen! Don't-"
She broke off as he slapped her cheek, a gentle blow but one hard enough to quell her incipient hysteria. As she lifted her hand to the mark of his fingers he fetched her wine.
"Drink this."
"Earl?"
"Drink it and stop worrying. No one is going to turn you out into a storm."
Not yet, perhaps not ever, but the threat was always present. Wine slopped as she drank, a ruby stain appearing on her chin, another on her robe. Dumarest took the empty goblet she handed to him.
"Earl, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For acting the fool. I didn't come out here to make an exhibition of myself. It was just seeing the desert and you and hoping you could get me away from here-am I asking too much?"
He said, harshly, "You're saying too little. If you have a plan tell me what it is. I need data to work on, facts, information. I can't promise a miracle."
"But you'll do your best? You won't forget me?"
"No." He mastered his impatience. If she offered nothing then he was no worse off than before. And there was always her friend. But to press was to betray his eagerness and to do that was to risk too much. "Hadn't you better get ready now?"
"Yes." She stepped back and took a step toward the bedroom then turned, one hand plucking at her robe, the fabric parting to reveal the smooth sheen of her skin. She was, he guessed, naked beneath the garment. "I came to suggest that you could use the shower if you wanted. Take a bath, even."
"Thank you."
"I just thought that after your work at the booth-" Her gesture was expressive. "And as we're going to a party, well, you understand."
He had bathed before calling and he understood too well. But it suited him to play her game, to strip and stand beneath a flood of scented water, to dry himself, to step into the bedroom and to see her, waiting. To take her. To hold her close, the robe falling, her naked flesh pressed hard against his own. To feel her demanding heat and his own, urgent response. To lift her on the wide, soft bed and there to remember another time, another place when hair the color of flame had burned no brighter than his passion.
Chapter Six
Tariq lived high in the Khain Tower, his private apartment fitted with windows, a covered walk, a place from which to look at the distant hills but lower, where he held his select gatherings, there were no windows. Instead, to make the affair a success, there were drifting globes which burst to emit puffs of colored smoke, others which gave birth to acrid scents, subtle perfumes, noxious odors. Shimmering membranes snowed the air each singing with whispers, murmurings, sonorous chords, lewd suggestions, jokes, ribaldries.
Hie wine was touched with rainbows, the food a plethora of shape and form; miniature ships, cities, castles, naked men and women, obscene monsters, beasts, things from the nightmare of imagination all resting on salvers decorated with slowly moving fringes of pseudo-life. Jellies shook and pulsed to subsonic rhythms and strobes froze hectic movement in transitory chiaroscuros. There was an acrobat, a dancer, a man who performed illusions. A mutant with a twin growing from his side. A man who wrung magic from a guitar. An old woman with a singing jewel.
There was no time in Harge. Only a window could tell the passing of day and night; the rest was a constant glow dulled only by intent. Life progressed at a steady pace, hours rolling one into the other, natural divisions blurred into a matter of convenience. But Marta Caine had her own biological clock and she was tired.
It was an ache which seemed to have penetrated her very bones so that she sat, back against the wall, the box holding the jewel cradled in her lap. Beyond the wall of the small room the party throbbed with undiminished energy, a sound which grew louder, to fade as the door was closed.
"Marta?" Kemmer was standing before her, a frosted glass of wine in one hand, a plate of dainties in the other.
"Marta?" He smiled as she opened her eyes. "Here, drink this wine and have a bite of food. It will help restore your strength." His smile masked concern. "Come now. They may call for you soon."