Living With Ghosts Part 28

"Sir, there are other equally capable officers. And I have personal reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to be elsewhere." If he was going to earn a black mark for questioning his orders, he might as well make it a nice big one. "The fact is that I believe I'm becoming too attached to one of the Lunedithin party."

The colonel studied him. "That's honest, at least." Joyain stayed silent. "When were you transferred to this regiment, Lieutenant? Three years ago?"

"Four, sir."

"Family in Merafi?"

"An aunt by marriage only, sir."

"Hmm." The colonel steepled his fingers. "What makes you think we need your talents in the old docks?"

The fact that I've fought a part of what we're facing, and I know that it isn't human. He could not say that, either, not without being dismissed as a lunatic. Joyain said, "I just think I'd be better away from the Lunedithin, sir."

"The cavalry aren't here to rescue you from your mistakes."

"Yes, sir. I know."

Again, the colonel studied him. Finally, he said, "How do you think you'd be at quelling panic or supervising ma.s.s burials?"

"I can do it, sir."

The colonel sighed. "Lieutenant, I'll be honest with you. We aren't short of men, and you're doing a good job where you are. However," and he looked at the letter again, "there are indications that we may need reinforcements at some point, particularly to handle night patrols. In which case," and he looked up, "I'm prepared to grant your request, effective from the day after tomorrow."

Joyain could breathe again. Saluting, he said, "Thank you, sir."

"Don't be too hasty about that." The colonel watched him. "Some of your duties might be unpleasant."

"So I've heard, sir."

"Have you? Well that's as may be." The colonel rose, and nodded. "All right, Lievrier. Dismissed."

Joyain saluted again and turned to go. At the door, the colonel called him back. "One thing. Where did you meet Yvelliane d'Illandre?"

"At the palace, sir." Among other places. But not even Leladrien was gossip enough to have spread that little item around.

"I see." The colonel frowned. "Forgot to hold the door open for her, did you?"

"Not that I recall, sir."

"You'd do well to remember that she has a long memory, Lievrier, and a good deal of influence. Try not to get across her again. It looks bad on your record."

"Yes, sir." Joyain suppressed a sigh and tried his level best to look baffled. "I'll bear that in mind, sir."

"You do that. As it happens, I've chosen not to pay attention to her comments. But if she complains again, I'll have to act."

"I understand, sir."

"Yes, I suppose you do." The colonel smiled. "Run along then and tell your friend duResne that he's to have a companion in his misery." Joyain tried very hard not to look surprised. The colonel laughed. "And tell him that next time he's to bring his gripes to me in person. It saves time."

"Yes, sir," said Joyain.

Standing on a doorstep, Gracielis tried not to fidget with the bandages on his wrists. The day was damp and chill. The air tasted sour and corroded. He did not want to be here. He had had no choice. Thiercelin had descended like a tidal bore upon Amalie's house almost before breakfast was over and swept him off to visit the Lunedithin emba.s.sy. "You're upright and reasonably coherent," declared his lords.h.i.+p. "So let's get this over with."

They were admitted by a servant and shown into a small salon. Thiercelin sat down on a high-backed chair, and removed hat and gloves. Gracielis remained standing, back to the window. He was armored in the trappings of his younger profession, feeble weapon against the danger that was Iareth Yscoithi. Iareth, who should be wholly strange to him, yet who haunted his nights, mirrored through a memory that was not his. He tugged at his lovelock and tried not to dwell upon the possibilities attendant upon this meeting. That way lay madness. He was face-to-face with his own inadequacies.

The servant returned and ushered them upstairs. Gracielis was silent, listening to the twin pulses of fear and alien need. In the landing mirror his reflection was foreign to him, beneath an expectation, an ancient desire. Deep within the shredding fabric of himself, he summoned the memory of Quenfrida's power over him as a protection against Valdarrien. Through his gloves he dug his nails into one bandaged wrist, letting pain tie him to himself.

Iareth Yscoithi stood in the room's center. Gracielis bowed without looking at her, holding tight to courtesy. Beside him, Thiercelin said, "Good day," and his voice was diffident.

"And to you also. You received my message?" Her voice held all the strangeness of the north. The sound caught at Gracielis. How long had Valdarrien mourned the loss of this woman before his violent end? Thiercelin was kissing her hand. Irrational jealousy s.h.i.+vered through Gracielis.

"A message?" Thiercelin said. "No. I've been away from home; it hasn't reached me. But if there's something I can do for you?"

"It is possible," Iareth said.

"This is Gracielis de Varnaq. I told you about him."

"So."

Unable to deny the moment any longer, Gracielis looked up. Level green eyes met his. Double vision, as memories met and mingled, of a younger Iareth, in kai-rethin gray. She looked tired and mysteriously older. He had forgotten how tall she was.

He had forgotten nothing, no part of her, the touch of her, the scent, her speaking silence and her dispa.s.sionate watchful gaze. Gracielis reached out to her without volition and the words were already forming, to follow: Iareth kai-reth, oh, my love, oh, my heart . . .

In her native tongue, Iareth said, "Valdin Allandur spoke but little Lunedithin."

He said in the same language, "I don't speak so very much of it myself."

"So. But it serves our present need."

"Thank you." It was too late to recall his manners and kiss her hand. Besides, he feared to touch her. He said, "How did you know?"

"I shall always know him. It's in the nature of the bond." She looked at him. Her matter-of-factness was comforting. "It seems to me, however, that you must find your own control, for Thierry has no knowledge of this tongue."

He had no control; that was not his gift. He began to say so, looking down in shame at his two-colored gloves. Abruptly he remembered Valdarrien's ghost in the royal aisle, and heard again that distant command. TellIareth kai-reth . . . He smiled and looked up. "You were right," he said to her in Merafien; and then, inside himself, "peace, be still."

Iareth gestured. "Will you sit? I believe Thierry has business to discuss."

"It's Valdin. In part," Thiercelin said, sitting. He looked down at his crossed ankles. "I've seen him-and talked to him-again."

"I, also." Iareth said. At Thiercelin's gesture of surprise, she added, "It was to be expected."

"I suppose so." Thiercelin frowned. "Graelis should explain, really. It's his theory."

Gracielis had sat down with his back to the window. He looked away, then said, "I'm content to be in your hands."

Thiercelin glared at him. "He thinks someone is trying to harm Merafi, and that Valdin is somehow involved. It sounds daft put like that, but . . ."

Iareth said, "There are many odd tales regarding the Tarnaroqui and their abilities. And others, of old powers." She looked at Gracielis without curiosity. "There are those of my people who hold such things unholy."

"Unholy," said Gracielis, "is preferable to absurd. It's less insulting."

Iareth said, "Tell me."

Gracielis looked at Thiercelin, who outlined the situation as they knew it. He avoided no part of it, not even the name of Kenan Orcandros. Iareth listened without comment. At the end of the account she was silent a moment; then she turned to Gracielis. "You saw a binding in water?" He nodded. "And you dreamed of Urien Armenwy, called Swanhame?"

"Yes." Gracielis hesitated. "And of you and someone whom I believe to be Kenan Orcandros."

She looked at her hands. After a moment, she said, "I wondered what it meant, that Valdin Allandur should tell me I was right. But now I think I understand." She rose and walked to the window. "There is a place in Lunedith, a waterfall named Saefoss. It is unhealthy. We seldom go there. But six years ago, I traveled there with Valdin and his party, and with Urien. By the side of the fall we were ambushed and several of us injured, including Valdin." She turned. "Do you know of this place?"

Gracielis smoothed his lace. Then he said, "I can hazard a guess." The tale was familiar to all of his training. Yestinn Allandur had enforced control on the old powers at one of their places of greatest potency, and then moved his own center to opaque Merafi. He had slain one of his own by treachery, by the side of the living fall. Gracielis said, "It is the place of Yestinn's compact. Where he shed the blood of his enemy, Gaverne Orcandros." He considered. "Was Kenan one of the ambushers?"

"Yes," Iareth said.

"And he was injured there?"

"Yes." She hesitated. "He had a hand in the wounding of Valdin kai-reth."

Gracielis s.h.i.+vered. An ancient pact, built on Orcandrin blood shed unwillingly at the hands of an Allandur. And now, Allandurin blood shed in the same place, equally unwillingly, by Orcandrin hands. Kenan's Orcandrin hands now linked in a working with the trained mind and strong gifts of Quenfrida.

Everyone was descended from the old clans except a handful of the Tarnaroqui. A handful whose ancestors had also struck bargains long ago, with old powers. But those bargains had not been for control. At the bidding of those distant priests, parts of the old power had put on human seeming and lain with humans to breed the likes of Quenfrida. The likes of Gracielis, too. The undarii , who could see the past and bind the dead and make use of the gifts offered by the awakening of old things. Those ancient powers lacked discrete awareness or individual consciousness, but they were strong and dangerous and they could, at a cost, be manipulated. By those who had the right blood.

Not wholly inhuman.

Kenan and Quenfrida had woken the past. Bound in blood and water and betrayal . . . It was a possibility only half-credited even among the undarii. But Gracielis found no trouble in seeing where the temptation lay. It would call loudly to Quenfrida, who had lost much of her human power by choosing his flawed self as acolyte.

She had another now, Lunedithin and Orcandrin, and his touch lay alongside hers in the working that threatened Merafi.

They had woken the old power of water, and the river was turning. Gracielis looked at Thiercelin and said, softly, "No," and then, to the floor, "It's over, then."

"Oh, Graelis," Thiercelin said. Iareth was silent. Rising, Gracielis made himself go to a window and look out. They were high here, on the hillside. On a normal day he should have seen all Merafi laid out before him. It was not a normal day. The tripart.i.te course of the river was shrouded in mist. Haze hid the west quarter. Blue smoke drifted from the south, although the angle of the house did not permit him to see that part of the city well. Only the tower of the temple raked upward to affirm the cityscape, and its shape was blurred.

Gracielis rubbed at his shoulder and sighed. He could do nothing. For him there were no more choices. For these others . . . Without turning, he said, "You must leave."

"Oh, must we?" said Thiercelin.

Gracielis said, "Your river is turning." And then, "Monseigneur, do you trust me?"

There was a pause. Then Thiercelin said, "I suppose so. I asked you to help with my ghosts. And I haven't strangled you yet."

"I'm grateful." Gracielis paused, looking at the temple. A few short days ago he had stood on its roof with Yvelliane and asked idly about the river. "If you trust me, then you must believe me. The troubles you already experience will worsen." He turned, looked at Thiercelin. "It's simple. The world you have known is ending."

Thiercelin's brows drew together. "Just like that?"

"Yes."

"Then we'd better do something about it." Thiercelin's voice held all the confidence of aristocracy. He stared at Gracielis, and his expression would brook no contradiction.

Gracielis looked at Iareth for support. Her face was neutral. Gracielis said, "But . . ." Then: "You don't understand. Monseigneur-Thierry-what you suggest can't be done."

"Why not?"

"Well . . ." Gracielis fumbled for words. He looked down at his bandaged wrists. "It isn't possible. You lack the knowledge and the resources. It's been too long since the old ways were credited here."

"Then I'll get help elsewhere," Thiercelin said.

"Where from?" Gracielis sat down on the window seat, and realized that he was shaking. "You'd have to find someone both willing and competent to undo what's been done. A high adept of the undarii. There's no one within three months' ride of here. Will you go all the way into the heart of Tarnaroq and try to convince them?"

"If I must."

"They won't believe you." Gracielis gestured hopelessly. "It would go against their interests, even granted that Quenfrida has probably acted without their knowledge. And if they did agree to help you, you lack the necessary time. Three months there, and three months back, without calculating how long it might take to convince them. Merafi won't hold so long. The tidal bore at next moon-double will destroy you. It's too late. I'm sorry."

Thiercelin inhaled. "Valdin tried to warn me. I owe it to him to do something."

"Lord Valdarrien's ghost is nothing but a side effect of the power that awakens," Gracielis said. "His blood was shed to arouse it. You've already done a great deal, but . . ."

Thiercelin cut him off. "I doubt it. I haven't even told Yviane most of what I know."

"There's nothing she can do."

"How can you be so sure?" Thiercelin leaned forward and glared. "Do you know everything about us all of a sudden?" Gracielis looked down. "She taught you well, your Quenfrida. Don't cross her. Don't question her. Take her every action as irrevocable and infallible." Behind his curtaining hair, Gracielis closed his eyes. "That's a counsel of impotence, Graelis. I won't follow it. I won't believe it until I've tried everything I can think of first. You may be right, but I swear by all your superst.i.tions that I'll die before I just give in. And if I don't do any good, at least I'll have tried. Which is more than I'll be able to say for you."

"Forgive me," Gracielis said, into his hands.

"Help me," Thiercelin said right back.

Gracielis was still, listening to the pulse beat in his marred wrists. He said, "I can't."

"Because it's forbidden? Or are you simply scared?"

Iareth said, "Do not."

Thiercelin ignored her. "Well, Graelis?"

Gracielis said, "I'm not capable. I'm not undarios." He met Thiercelin's eyes. "I lack the knowledge needed." He paused, then added, "We aren't adequate to this task."

Thiercelin looked down. Iareth said, "That may be true only in part. Might not a.s.sistance be sought?"

"The distance . . ." Gracielis began.

She shook her head. "I have already written to Urien Armenwy. He is wise in many things." She hesitated. "He is not of your undarii. But he has the old clan gifts." She looked at Gracielis. "He has the knowledge you speak of. And he will come; I am sure of it."

"When?" Thiercelin said.

"Soon."

Thiercelin nodded. Then he turned back to Gracielis. "You feed information to Yviane. Am I so different?"

"No."