Blood and Ivory-A Tapestry Page 7

  Somehow, they were upstairs now, in the forbidden chamber under the crystal dome. Jame couldn't see her own reflection in the big mirror, but she could see Jamethiel within its clouded surface, dancing in a dark, vast hall over a floor veined with glowing green. A shrouded figure waited for her. They circled each other, almost but not quite touching, in the ghost of an embrace. Then she danced on, deeper into the mirror, farther and farther away.

  Only then did Jame realize that she was alone, in an empty room, in a bleak keep, in the heart of a haunted, hopeless wasteland. Among the dead.

  The shadowy man held out his hand to her. She understood that he was offering her everything that she had been denied by Father: knowledge, power, and perhaps even love. And there was Mother—lost, found, and now about to be lost again forever. Jame touched the mirror. Her hand passed through it into cold air. He reached for her.

  "Found you!" Tori bounded into the room. "That was the best game of 'seek' ever. If Father finds you in here again, though, he'll kill you."

  Then he saw the mirror, and his jaw dropped.

  Jame snatched back her hand.

  "Don't!" she said sharply to her brother, grabbing his arm. Instinct told her that it would be fatal for him, the wrong twin, to enter that dark hall.

  He stared past her into the shadowy, silvered depths. "But it's Mother! She's come back to us! I knew she would, I knew . . . " His voice faltered. "No, she's slipping away again. Let me go! I have to stop her!"

  He reached for the mirror.

  Jame hit him.

  He turned on her, more astonished than hurt, and then furious. "Don't you understand? If Mother comes back, Father will leave us alone. If she doesn't, sooner or later he's going to kill us!"

  " 'Destruction begins with love'?"

  "Yes! Now let me go!"

  She wouldn't. In a moment, they were fighting in earnest, back and forth across the room. Tori's nose began to bleed again. So did Jame's lip when he split it against her teeth with a fire-leaping kick. In doing so, however, he over-extended. She caught his foot and tipped him backward onto the bed. Its worm-eaten legs collapsed. With a soft explosion of dust and feathers from an ancient mattress, the whole structure fell in on itself.

  An inhaled feather set Jame to coughing helplessly. This wouldn't do; she had to rescue Tori. She was groping forward when a hand closed on her collar and jerked her back.

  "What in Perimal's Name d'you think you're doing?" growled her father.

  Then through the settling cloud he saw the ruined bed, with his son's legs sticking out of it. He tossed Jame aside, waded into the sea of feathers, and heaved the footboard off Tori. It had fallen on the boy's head, stunning him and further bloodying his face. He looked terrible.

  Ganth turned on his daughter. "You little bitch! What have you done?"

  Then, looking past her, he saw the mirror. Dust had dulled its surface, but something moved within it like a distant star. Hastily wiping the glass with his sleeve, he saw a blurred image of the Master's hall. A pale figure danced in it. His breath condensed on the cold surface and again, frantically, he wiped it away.

  "Give her back!" he shouted, and struck the mirror with his fist.

  "Now, now. Don't break the glass." The words, as distorted as the image, came from within. The figure had minced closer. Draped, loose skin instead of the white gown, flesh that shifted uncertainly between male and female—the changer Keral grinned and preened, naked, inside the mirror.

  "Too late, Grayling. The Mistress is back where she belongs, with us, and here she will stay. You missed her by about ten minutes."

  Ganth made a strangling sound. Then he grabbed Jame by the arm and jerked her forward, ignoring her stifled cry of pain. "You want the girl? Here. An exchange."

  "Too late. My master has reconsidered. This child is too . . . unmanageable. Look at her! Can you see her ever taking the Dream-Weaver's place? Besides, she has shown none of the Shanir traits that my master requires. His gifts would be wasted on her. And now he has an alternative: a pureblooded Knorth child by your sister Tieri."

  "Tieri has no child!"

  "Not yet, but soon."

  The scene in the mirror changed to a blur of white flowers and a sad young woman walking among them. A shadow fell across her and she turned.

  "Tonight, in the Moon Garden, the contract that your father made so long ago with my lord Gerridon will at last be fulfilled."

  With a terrible cry, Ganth shattered the mirror and ground its pieces to dust beneath his feet. Then he turned on Jame.

  "You! This is all your fault!"

  She recoiled, sure that he meant to kill her. She couldn't fight him; he was too strong, and beyond reason with frustrated rage. She had to escape, but where was the door? Tapestries covered every wall, all those mute, familiar faces, watching.

  She bent over her brother and shook him. "Tori, wake up! Help me!"

  The boy groaned but didn't open his eyes. Maybe the falling board had cracked his skull. "This is all your fault," he muttered, almost in his father's voice. Then a singular smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "Why, child," he said, and this time Keral spoke through him. "Didn't you know? Daddy is a monster."

  She had paused too long: Ganth's powerful arm circled her throat from behind and jerked her up, off her feet. She kicked backward, without effect, and tore at his arm. Cloth ripped. He swore and dropped her. She scuttled out of reach, stopped, and stared, first at his shredded, bloody sleeve, then at her own no longer nail-less fingers. The itching tips had split open and peeled back. As she flexed them, appalled, sharp ivory claws slick with her own blood slid in and out, in and out.

  "Shanir," he breathed, and the word was a curse. "A filthy, god-cursed Shanir. I should have known."

  "No!" she said, holding out her hands as if to disown them. "I can't be!" She would chop off her fingers, she thought wildly, as Tigon had his toes, or trim them back to the quick. Anything . . . but too late: Father had seen.

  He came after her, with Kin-Slayer unsheathed.

  Jame retreated, crying, "Anar, Tig, Winter, help!" But none of them were here, except in their woven images.

  She ripped down a tapestry, looking frantically for the door. The weaving fell over her pursuer in a cloud of dust. Swathed and stumbling in its heavy folds, clutched as if by hands of knotted thread, he hacked at the familiar faces.

  "Traitors! How dare you try to shield her?"

  Jame had her hands on the panel that depicted Winter, Tob, and a big man behind them whom she supposed must be Sere, Winter's long-dead mate. There behind it, at last, was the open door. Through it came Winter herself.

  "Traitor!" screamed Ganth again, and cut her down.

  Jame tried to support the randon as she sagged, but she was too heavy. "Winnie! Are you all right?"

  Clearly, Winter was not. Ashen-faced, she clutched her lower abdomen, but even such strong hands as hers could not stern the tide of blood. Already, the floor was black with it.

  Ganth lurched against the wall as if his own legs had failed him. He looked almost as stricken as the randon. "Oh my God. First Sere, then Tob, and now you. Oh, Winter. Ancestors forgive me."

  He refocused on Jame who crouched before her mentor, trying futilely to staunch that terrible wound. She turned, nails out, prepared like some small wild creature to defend a loved one to the death, and would have gone for her father's throat if Winter hadn't gripped her arm.

  "Run," she said to Jame. "D'you hear me, child? Run." Then, "My lord, you are still . . . not your brother . . . "

  Her voice faded. She slumped sideways, hands dropping limply to the floor, coils of intestines spilling over them. Kin-Slayer had cut her nearly in half.

  "You!"

  Ganth's berserker flare seemed to pick Jame up and throw her out of the room. She ran with no thought except to escape—down the stairs, through the hall, out of the keep, into the Haunted Lands. Collapsing on a hillside, gasping for breath, she still heard echoes of the raging cu
rse that had driven her out:

  "Shanir, god-spawn, unclean, unclean . . . "

  She stared at her . . . nails? Claws? Her hands were still covered with Winter's blood, as was her face with her own from the lip that Tori had split. At some point, it had begun to throb. Her fingertips hurt too. She clenched her fists to hide the nails, driving them into her palms. The more they hurt, perhaps, the less empty she would feel.

  Unclean, unclean . . .

  Tori had let this happen. No. What could he have done, even if he had been conscious? But would he try to follow her this time? Not against Father's will. No one would.

  Night had fallen, and a cold wind blew. The grasses sang or moaned or sobbed, according to their kind. Haunts would soon be abroad. She couldn't stay here, and she couldn't go home. She had no home, not anymore.

  Something large, pale, and ungainly sailed across the face of the moon. That was odd: nothing flew this deep in the Haunted Lands unless, perhaps, it had come from beyond the Barrier.

  Watching it, Jame didn't at first notice the vibration in the earth. Then the moon vanished, eclipsed by Ganth's war-horse as it roared over the hill's crest, over her head, nearly clipping her with its steel-shod feet. Its saddle was empty. It swerved, red-rimmed nostrils flaring as it caught her scent. Jame had seen haunts before. They were always hungry, but not for grass.

  Something pallid swooped down onto its back. It shrieked with rage and bolted. They plunged past, first one way, then the other, the haunt bucking, the rider groping for reins and flying stirrups. They disappeared over a rise. Jame waited, crouched close to the ground. No good trying to run or hide: with the haunt's keen senses, this was one game of "seek" she couldn't win.

  And here they came, trotting back, the stallion in sullen acceptance, the rider tucking in the loose flaps of skin that had previously allowed him to fly. He grinned down at her.

  "Well, well. I come to fetch my master one prize and find, perhaps, another. So you are Shanir after all, girl. I smell it on you. Perhaps my master cast you aside too quickly. In any event, it would be wise to make provisions in case his plan tonight fails. Would you like to come back with me to his House?"

  Jame stood up, fighting the urge either to hide her nails or to use them.

  "You said he didn't want me, that his gifts would be wasted on me."

  "Maybe. In that case, we can always feed you to his new war-horse."

  "Otherwise, he will teach me?"

  "Oh, all manner of wonderful things." He extended his hand. "Well?"

  As Jame hesitated, into her mind came the defiant words she had chanted to the keep's blank walls which even the dead had abandoned:

  "If I want, I will learn .

  "If I want, I will fight.

  "If I want, I will live.

  "And I want.

  "And I will."

  She took the changer's hand.

  "Home, then," he said, pulling her up behind him.

  Changer, haunt, and child cantered off together toward the Barrier, into the shadow of Perimal Darkling.

  CHILD OF DARKNESS

  An introduction to "Child of Darkness"

  This is the first complete story I ever wrote. You should know that, although I've fantasized about Jame and her world ever since childhood, I only got up the courage to commit said stories to paper after college. That was when I decided that I either had to realize my life-long ambition to be a writer or I had to do something else with my life. So I started writing, rather like someone throwing herself head first over a cliff.

  If I had waited to know everything about this epic, I would never have written about it at all.

  As it was, I tackled Jame as best I could, putting her in a familiar context—college, during the Vietnam protests, which in science fiction terms translated into a post-WWIII dystopian world. The rationale for this was that there must be more worlds down the Chain of Creation and that Jame, in fleeing Perimal Darkling, had over-shot Rathillien and crash-landed in the next world down the Chain—a world created by the Kencyrath's failure to stop Perimal Darkling in Rathillien. It was, if you like, an alternate history. I don't know if it will ever come to exist.

  P. C.

  "The moon is blue, Sam," said Tania's voice on the 'phone.

  "Oh God," I said. "Tonight? D'you know what it's like outside—or in here, for that matter? There are uncracked text tapes stacked to the ceiling, I have a decade of post-holocaust pounce and counter-pounce to get straight, my lecture notes up to the midquarter have disappeared and the farking exam is in two days! Complications I don't need!"

  "It's still blue. Please, Sam."

  I threw the recorder at the bed, missed, hit the wall. Sounds of chaos in a plastic shell. So much for the rest of the notes.

  "Awright, awright . . . hey! Who says?"

  "Jame," she said, and clicked off.

  Samuel!, I thought to myself, what the hell? First St. John tells us to sit snug for the night, which makes sense on finals' eve, and now Jame is calling the pack out via Tania, who's using the emergency code for the first time since—when? The cafeteria riots? What gives?

  Only one way to find out.

  Next-of-kin updated with dorm security, I set off at a trot on the rim walk, bound for St. John's apartment on the other side of the central forest, staying close to the security posts.

  Hard to b'lieve there used to be a stu b'hind each of those visored stone faces. Get boxed once too often and the brain goes like mashed pseudo-spuds. Admin loves veggies. Just re-psych 'em a bit, pump in loyalty to the government, and turn 'em loose to guard the buildings. Instant camp-cop. I could have been sliced n' diced in front of one and he wouldn't have lifted a paw to help me. But he would have reported the tom with the blade. Maybe only failing exams and wasting Admin property will get you boxed, but murder loses you credits. Therefore, killings on the walk are rare, even if pouncings aren't.

  Not that it was any night to trust logic. Prefinal weeks are always hairy, and this one had been worse than any since that blue moon night six quarters ago when a whole norm pack had disappeared without a trace in the forest and Mang the Knifer, come to collect Jame Talissen for Sid Dillon's harem, made the mistake of trying to tomcat some for himself. That was when our Jame started their private war on a high note by somehow slashing him 'cross the face in four places at once and putting out his right eye. On a night just like this . . .

  Sam, my boy, I said to myself, these are fine thoughts for a lone tom out rim walking on finals' eve. Switch channels b'fore you go wobbly. Click back to the call.

  Ours wasn't so much a pack as "an interdependent defense unit" (St. John's term). If we were rallying, tonight of all nights, it was b'cause one of us had hit grief. Question was, who?

  Ammie? Our weakest link, poor kit. Last finals, she came in a point too low on an exam—first time in her life—and the punishment box they stuffed her into turned out to be defective. Mishaps will eventuate, says Admin. Huh. St. John loved her b'fore the accident, still did afterward, so far as we could tell. As for Ammie, everything but St. John just sort of faded out of her world. Poor pretty kitten. Maybe poor St. John too.

  But if it was Ammie, why didn't St. John call himself, and why pull in the entire pack?

  Figured the other way, what emergency could Jame have that she'd want us involved in? She was of the pack, but didn't always run with it, if you get what I mean. If she was a tom's friend, she'd stand by him 'til the sky fell; but if she needed help herself, would she go to him for it? Not our Jame. A strange, wild kitten, that, even for a Kennie. Half-feral, St. John used to say. No one handed her grief for the fun of it.

  So this was serious.

  So what did you expect, microceph? And here you are tooling 'long the scenic route when a packmate—never mind which one—needs you.

  So I cut off the pavement, down the slope, and into the trees. Like I said, it was no night for logic.

  Spent the first mile dodging packs. This being exam eve, most of them
were prowling the woods for game or holding circuses in their own territory. When one of those toms knows that, barring a miracle, he's in for a full tour in the box come next week for failing every exam on the sheet tomorrow, no way is he going to waste time cracking texts the night before the ceiling falls. All he wants is to forget, and friend, if he latches onto you as a diversion, you've had it.

  The farther in I got, though, the quieter it b'came. First, the distant cry of packs faded out, then the wind, then even the insect hum. Dark, silent, spooky. Me, I'm a city-bred tom, used to prowling the levels from the top where most people live down to the haunted substrats and their piles of bones. Had never even seen a tree b'fore I hit campus. Was just deciding to take my chances back in pack territory when I stumbled into the clearing at the forest's center. Lordy, it felt good to be under open sky again. Over the treetops, the lights of the taller buildings ringed the forest. They were real to me, y'see; the clearing and woods weren't, what with their silence like a sponge and the ground littered with growing patches of mist.