Part 32 (1/2)
”Iban and Hestia, my heart.” The old man's voice drew his gaze around and he found himself lost in the ancient eyes. ”They've come to join our family, to help us get safely home where we can start again.”
He started to shake. He wanted to shriek, but the only protest he could force through the horror was a faint and disbelieving, ”No...”
Chapter Twelve.
”Funny,” Karlene mused, glancing up at the dawn sky.
”What is?” Vree asked, pulling her girth tight in spite of the gelding's plans to the contrary.
”Gabris hasn't sent any kigh since just past midday yesterday.”
”Maybe he's given up.”
”Gabris? Not likely. Even if he can't get me to return and he essentially trusts my
judgment, he'll want me to know exactly how much he disapproves.”
”He's probably trying to trap you. He'll wait until he thinks you've stopped
expecting the air spirits to come and have lowered your guard. Then he'll send them again.””Perhaps.” The bard swung up into the saddle and yanked the bottom of her long tunic out from under her. ”But it seems just a little too military for Gabris.”
”We did that at Oman; only without the air spirits. Do you remember, Vree? You won ten crescents from One-ball when he didn't think they'd fall for it.”
”You won ten crescents, Bannon, not me.”
”I did? Are you sure?”
She could hear One-ball cursing as the Fourth Squad breached the gate. Could feel the cold weight of the coins in her hand. But was it a memory of her hand or Bannon's? She'd lost two crescents in a dice game, spent three at Teemo's on a beautiful young man with ebony hair down past his...
”No, Vree, that was me. I went to Teemo's not you. His name was...”
”Ahlaun.” She could remember his name, feel the touch of his body, but Bannon was right; he'd gone to Teemo's, not her. ”So you won the ten crescents.”
”But I watched you collect.”
”No.” But her denial had little force behind it for the edges of the memory blurred too far to distinguish which of them watched and which of them won. Searching for herself, Vree started to get lost in the kaleidoscope of images.
”Vree!” Gyhard watched anxiously as she turned toward the sound of her name and her eyes found a focus on his face.
”What?” Her tone, for all it suggested he was interrupting where he had no business being, had a hint of desperation behind it.
Sifting through a number of responses, he dropped his arm. He'd come very close to shaking her even though he doubted he'd have enjoyed her response. ”Do you think you could continue your conversation with your brother some other time?” The near panic in her expression had made it clear it'd been much more than mere conversation, but as she wouldn't accept his concern-not that he really blamed her-he made it easier on them both by not offering it. ”We're ready to go.”
Without answering, Vree whirled about and flung herself up into the saddle. Then she glared down at him with barely concealed impatience.
Why do I bother? he sighed to himself as he mounted. The bard's expression suggested that he deserved what he got and he supposed he did. I need to keep reminding myself that when she looks on me with anything but contempt, it's safe to a.s.sume it's her brother's body she sees. Except that once or twice over the course of their journey, he could have almost sworn that she saw him. And at the end of that journey? The bard was right. No happy endings. He slammed his heels into the horse's sides, and the startled animal charged away from the innyard. ”Who stuck a spear up his b.u.t.t?”
Bent low over the cropped brush of his horse's mane, Neegan ignored the shouts of those forced to dive away from galloping hooves as he ignored the pain pounded into muscles and joints by his wild ride. He'd traded the courier's horse he'd taken from the First Army's stables at the way station where he'd rested for what little part of the night he felt he could spare. The couriers' horses, bred by the seven armies for extremes of speed and endurance, could half the time it took to travel from the Capital to Shaebridge.
Even if they were riding hard, he'd be on his target by dark.
”We're closer.” Karlene whistled the kigh out of the billowing folds of her tunic and remounted. ”We're still more than a day's walk away, but the kigh are a lot more agitated than they were.”
”It might not be because of Kars,” Gyhard pointed out.
”It has to be. He's the only thing that's ever upset the kigh like that.”
”The only thing you know of, and you aren't that old.”
”This from a man who's barely shaving,” Karlene snorted sarcastically, raking him with a disdainful glance. ”You want to play elder statesman with me, you should've taken over a different body. In all of Bardic Recall, your Kars is the only thing that the kigh have ever been frightened of.” She waited for him to deny that it was ”his Kars.” When he didn't, she turned the information over to examine it. She'd been a.s.suming that when he'd met Kars, the crippled bard was already an old man, but that wasn't necessarily so. Gyhard had admitted that Bannon's body was not the first body he'd taken. Without her quite controlling it, her free hand rose to trace the sign of the Circle over her heart. He could've left a hundred bodies abandoned behind him. There were a thousand questions she should've asked.
Gyhard had made it clear from the beginning he was after the old man, not the prince. Why? Perhaps they'd been young men together, with young men's feelings- which would explain why Gyhard considered the old man to still be ”his Kars.” But would an old love be enough with a new love, however hopeless by his side? Get a grip, Karlene, she chided herself. Write the tragic ballad when this is over.
Based on what he'd said to Vree back in the Healers' Hall, Gyhard agreed to go after the prince only when he became certain Kars was involved and raising the dead. Kars raised the dead by Singing the fifth kigh. Gyhard moved his kigh from body to body. If Gyhard met Kars many years and perhaps many bodies ago...
Her heart skipped a beat, and she jerked around to face him, nearly unseating herself. ”You taught him to Sing the fifth kigh!”
Vree started at the sudden exclamation and a dagger appeared in her hand.
Gyhard stretched an arm between their horses and touched her lightly on the shoulder. ”I think she's speaking to me.”
”I know that,” Vree snarled, sheathing the blade. ”Do you think we're stupid?”
”I think you've got highly trained responses,” he began, but Vree cut him off.
”Don't patronize me,” she said wearily. ”It doesn't help. Answer the bard.”
Gyhard closed his eyes for a moment and remembered how simple life had been when it hadn't mattered what anyone thought of him-only what they thought of the body and the ident.i.ty he wore. How fortunate that I don't care what the other one thinks. ”The bard didn't actually ask me anything. I believe she was making more of an accusation.”
”And I'll make another one!” Karlene's horse danced sideways under the prod of his rider's emotions. ”You're responsible for... for everything!”
”For everything?” His voice, arrogant and cynical, mocked her intensity. ”You grant me too great an influence. I may be responsible for bringing the fifth kigh to Kars' attention.” And I may have hastened his descent into madness by doing it. ”But I am not responsible for the rest.” And he would not accept responsibility for it either. ”You lost the prince.” The bald accusation, contemptuously delivered, rubbed salt in a wound he knew she kept raw by self-flagellation. ”Try to remember that, without me, you're not likely to get His Highness back.”
Karlene ground her teeth together, as angry as he'd meant her to be. ”If you were not an abomination creating other abominations, His Highness would never have been taken!”
”If you hadn't encouraged the prince to pant after you-oh, yes, we heard the rumors while we were in the Capital-then he wouldn't have been where he could have been taken.”