Exile's Return Read online

  Up ahead, Willem and Rommel skidded to a stop, flinging Henryk to the ground as they gawked at a sprung snare, leather noose dangling from the sapling they’d set it with. And, hanging by its hind leg, suspended, twisting in circles, a snarling wildcat, front legs lashing and slashing, screams of anguish and absolute fury spitting out of it. Unregarded, Matty and Nelle ran closer, almost behind the Killanins, curious despite themselves. A wave of sick rage swept over Matty; it was what they called a larchcat, strange beasts native to the planet that reminded the settlers of an elusive but overlarge house cat—about four times the size of an average one.

  The name came from a corruption, a contraction of “large cat,” as in the surprised shout, “Look at that larchcat peering out at us!” For some reason larchcats seemed to enjoy watching people, shadowing their movements, although they, in turn, were rarely spied. This clearly was a nursing female. And from the raw mangling of its swollen hind leg and foot, noose cutting through skin and flesh, it had spent a long, bitter time slowly swinging in the breeze.

  Captivated by the vision of simultaneously torturing two creatures, Rommel dragged Henryk up by his injured arm, whipped him within reach of those desperate, slashing claws. Henryk cried and shuddered as the claws slashed across his thin ribs.

  Two on two—Nelle and himself against Rommel and Willem, and Matty still didn’t favor the odds, though he had no choice. But the woods rustled, echoed with thudding feet, and he caught Nelle’s grim smile of satisfaction. “Get’em, girls!” she shouted, and the woods exploded with five female bodies, nubile, scantily clad, and all swept by a grim rush of maternal defensiveness. Matty had never seen anything like the furious charge of Nelle’s swimming companions and prayed he never would again, although parts of the picture were pleasantly distracting.

  Rommel and Willem were no fools; few bullies are, knowing precisely when, where, how—and most especially which—pitiful souls are ripe for harassment and persecution. Odds definitely against them, they took to their heels, the girls making a show of racing after but gradually letting the distance widen.

  The girls halted just at the clearing’s edge, throwing stones, branches, shouting hoarsely, making enough racket to convince the two, at least for a while, of hot pursuit. Up over the treed ridge, down its side, and heading for the stream, Matty judged by the sounds, when an awful silence pressed flat and heavy over the woods. A stillness, then a precipitous crack, a roar and rumbling that tumbled them all off their feet, knocked over leaning trees, shot gouts of earth and stones into the air. “Plumb!” they screamed at each other, though there was no need for the identification. It was one of the few constants in their young lives. A constant of death and destruction. Screams of panic, two voices shrieking beyond the ridge, one precipitously cut off.

  Picking himself up, limping toward Henryk, Matty watched the larchcat swinging from the snare like a pendulum. “Oh my, oh my,” Henryk whimpered, spectacles tossed from his nose, the boy spread-eagled on the ground, clutching it with both hands. Legs unsteady, Matty collapsed beside his uncle, dragged him into his lap, rocking him back and forth, ignoring the rest of the world. Nelle staggered to his side, picking at pieces of gravel embedded in the heel of her palm, her elbow where she’d. skidded when she’d landed.

  “Have the girls check on Willem and Rommel,” he told her, cheek pressed against Henryk’s white, scrub-brush hair. No matter how much you hated someone, you never not checked on a person in the Plumb’s vicinity. Plumb—Periodic Linear Ultra-Mensuration Beamer—hundreds, thousands of them sunk into the earth of this new planet by his granther and his fellow Spacers when they’d first landed. The wonders of modem science, technology, sensor chips able to “read” the land and what it contained, its minerals and ores, determine any hostile movement of the land. Except the Plumbs had turned into lethal time bombs, exploding without rhyme or reason, unable to be dug up and defused. Some had fled the planet in the few usable spaceships, deserting Granther and the rest. Matty spat in disgust, mouth too dry to make it effective.

  Nelle’s gloomy head toss countermanded him; he’d momentarily forgotten her presence, locked in a past made eternally, dangerously present. “Did already. It swallowed Willem. Rommel was caught halfway down when the crack snapped closed again. The girls are getting help.” Funny, he hadn’t even noticed they’d gone, so lost in his own private universe of relief and pain, with Henryk in his arms.

  “Would you, would you take Henryk back?” he asked, diffident at asking a favor. “Think his shoulder’s dislocated, and we ought to disinfect those scratches.”

  “Take him back yourself,” she shot back. “You’re his nephew, after all.” Sun-bleached blonde hair wisped and straggled around her sweaty, pale forehead.

  “I’ve got to stay, should be there when the rescue party comes to dig them free. Sometimes they need somebody small to slither into the tight spots.” A wash of embarrassment at the import of his words, but it was true, he was much slighter than she.

  “It’s all right. Won’t be forever, you’ll grow. Boys are always slow. I’m used to it. Besides,” she rushed the next words, “if my other choice is Kuyper and his brothers, I’ll take you any day!” Turning away, she squatted, broad at shoulder and buttocks, patient, “Now help get Henryk up.”

  Few wanted anything to do with Henryk, let alone close physical contact. “He won’t hurt you, you know.” It mattered that he make it clear to her, as if his revealed love for Henryk would reveal something more. “There’s nothing different about him ’cept he doesn’t have much color.”

  “I know,” she grumbled, hooking arms around Henryk’s pipestem legs, shifting him higher. “Not his fault, but your granther should’ve known better than to lie with old Mad Margare. Look what comes of it.” And with that she stood up with Henryk on her back and trotted off.

  What he also didn’t risk saying was that he wanted time alone, a chance to put the larchcat out of her misery. After all, Rommel certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Reaching as high as he could on the sapling, he dragged it down, forcing himself on top, trying to snap it where it grew thinnest. No knife, nothing to saw through the sapling or to sever the leather snare itself. He wrestled with it, felt it finally crack, not broken through, but crippled and bent, at least, so the animal rested on the ground for the first time in he didn’t dare guess how long.

  “Hush, love, hush,” he crooned, hands groping for the rock Nelle had left behind. She twisted on her side, fixing him with green eyes, and again the swollen nipples, fur worn away from them, dominated his vision. Not only was she doomed, but so were her kits, if they weren’t already dead. Her emerald, almond-shaped eyes pierced him, made him flinch, wish he could shield himself. “Just get it over with,” he grated out loud, as if that would compel him to do it. Instead, he began working shaky fingers to loosen the loop sunk deep in the swollen flesh, shocked that she didn’t respond, claw at him, hiss, bite. Hopeless. In a fury of anger at everyone, everything, himself included for being so hopeless, so helpless, he chewed at the rawhide, sawing it back and forth between his teeth. And because, for once, luck smiled on him, because the Killanins never did anything right, including tanning leather, he chewed through it.

  Emerald eyes still intent on him, the cat began crawling away, spine twisted, hind legs immobile, front legs drawing her forward, inexorable. “Wait, please, just wait!” he begged. “Rest easy! I’ll find them, bring them if I can.” Rushing to the stream, he folded a moose maple leaf into a pouch, scooped water, trickled it into the panting mouth, sorrowing that so much spilled, was wasted. A puffy, crusted tongue pressed the faintest lick against his trembling wrist, and she began pulling herself along again. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t kill her—but he had to give her that kindness. But first he’d made a pledge that must be honored.

  Casting about, he desperately searched for her denning place. High, low? No idea, no clue, until he spied a rotting stump with a round hole burrowed under one of the arched roots. Feverishly
he ran and knelt in front of it, thrust one arm in as far as it would go, fumbling around. Fur, yes! He pulled out a limp little bundle, cradled it in his hands. Dead. Too late, too late! Walking back, heart pounding with the pain of failure, he laid it beside its mother, watched her lick it once, then stop, look at him again, commanding. Feet leaden, he stumbled back, sank his arm in again, wild to touch something warm and living, something to make this horror of a day right. Something pulled from his touch, hissed. He grabbed again, fingers splayed, working blind, closing at last on a struggling little body.

  Out it came, fighting all the way. Amazing that growls so ferocious could issue from such a small creature, so absurdly soft and—ouch!—sharp. Claws raked his knuckles, four tiny lines of blood sprouting in their wake. Hurrying, unsure he could contain it with his hands without harming it, he laid it beside its dead sibling. The mother larchcat’s eyes dulled, a third membrane sliding across, head wavering as she strained to lick the kit, push it to her side to nurse. At last, realizing its safety, the tiny head burrowed, sucked hungrily, only to protest after a few sucks. The mother had gone dry.

  Wanting to console, he laid his hand on the little creature’s striped back as the mother sighed, body going limp. Squalling in frustration and fear, the kit spun—frightened, hungry—and sank her teeth into Matty’s hand, the tender skin between thumb and index finger. With a screech of pain he jerked away, sucked at the wound, found himself openmouthed, the little kit equally so.

  “Kharm! Oh, oh, oh! Matty-mind! Did it, did it! All by myself! Matty Kharm love, inside head. Greatest ghatten of all am I, Kharm!” Hands over his ears, body rigid and listening. Not hearing this, can’t be hearing this inside my head, can I? Crazy, crazy, but true! Anyone related to Amyas Vandersma was crazy. The old man might be rock solid, but none of his offspring were, that was a fact! And now, at last, he, Matthias Vandersma had joined the fold.

  “No, no. Inside each other’s minds, hearts. Best way to talk is inside head, silly ghatten-boy.” The kit scrambled across his knees, tiny claws catching in the damp trouser fabric. She turned three times and collapsed into a tiny ball, ready to sleep. The striped sides heaved in a sigh. “Hungry! Feed?”

  And Matthias began to cry, doubled over, protecting the little kit, wondering how he was going to cope, what he was going to do, how he was going to conquer this mad voice inside his head.

  Whiskers scrubbed against her cheeks, tickled under her chin, pushed farther until it felt as if velvet-clad rocks thrust her head up, righting her, two damp noses at her throat, one warm, the other cool and moist from outside. “Wake up, Doyce! Wake up now!” one voice commanded while the other cajoled, indulgent, “Sleepyhead.”

  She recognized the smug protectiveness of the second voice all too well. “Khar?” she mumbled, half-asleep, barely forming the words. “When ... you come in? Didn’t ... hear you. ” Fisting herself upright against the table, she sat up, yawned. “Pests. Why can’t you and Per’la let me sleep?”

  Per’la’s eye-whiskers flickered extravagantly as she spoke in their silent falanese language, all twitches and subtle movements. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t share Major Tales like that? It could be dangerous!” Her truncated tail switched, the ribbon rustling, peridot eyes glaring. “I didn’t think she was going to awake when we called!” Parse, engrossed in his work, humming to himself, noticed nothing of the silent contretemps or Doyce’s awakening.

  Rubbing under Doyce’s chin, Khar, all tiger-swirled, wrinkled her pink nose at Per‘la. “It may be necessary. And, no, it wasn’t dangerous. Mem’now and Terl, Mr‘la and Wa’roo helped, though your help would have been appreciated once you realized what we were doing.” The ghatta sat, stared at her Bondmate, who yawned again, rubbed sleep from her eyes. “Pleasant dreams, beloved?” her innocence a little too feigned.

  “Funny how when you doze off like that the dreams mingle what you’ve been thinking about with anything else floating through your head. ” Impartial, she set about scratching both ghatta heads. “So vivid, so real... about the beginnings of it all, but I can’t recall much more than that, ” she confessed.

  “Why not call it a day, love?” Khar suggested, claws working against the tabletop as she shoved against the hand. Best take no notice of Per‘la’s suspicious expression or she might feel guilty about what she’d helped Doyce dream. Besides, clearly no harm had been done if she could scarcely remember what she’d dreamed. Her ringed ears flashed an eloquent, “So there,” in Per’la’s direction.

  “Mayhap you’re right.” Rising, Doyce stretched and groaned, the sound and movement at last catching Parse’s attention. Pivoting on his foot, he turned, grinned.

  “Hello, sleepyhead. Back from slumberland, I see. And who’s been doing serious research while you’ve been napping?”

  Dignity destroyed by a jaw-cracking yawn, she glared at Parse. “Thought I’d try to let you catch up with me.” Then, more apologetically, “If you don’t mind, Parse, I think I’ll call it quits for the day. The librarian should be back soon, so you and Per’la won’t be alone. And I want to see how Swan’s doing.”

  He frowned, not at her suggestion, but at the thought of Swan Maclough, Seeker General, lying so still, so pale, so thin. Nearly run through from behind by a pike during the thick of the battle, a battle in which she wasn’t supposed to take part. The pike had punctured a lung, and the eumedicos had managed to reinflate it, but nothing seemed to be healing properly, despite Swan’s denials to the contrary. With winter coming on, Doyce worried about pneumonia or bronchitis settling in the weakened lungs. All too likely. Even a common, garden-variety cold could prove too much to withstand. She didn’t care how many eumedicos were on call from the Hospice, how often Twylla was there, how often Mahafny visited—she should be at Swan’s bedside, not let another friend slip away.

  “Of course,” Parse replied. “Visit her, see if you can take her mind off things. All she wants to do is discuss business—as if she’s afraid that if she doesn’t do it now, there won’t be time later.” The import of his words struck him, and he bit his lip. Wounded as well, he bore the guilt all survivors suffer for those whose wounds were worse or for those who didn’t survive. She knew it from her own experience, the patterns her life had taken that had brought her here. The deaths of her husband Varon, baby daughter Briony, and the supposed loss of her stepson Vesey, all consumed by the fire that had swept their house during that period of time when she was no longer a eumedico but not yet a Seeker. Guilt swept over her that Briony hadn’t survived, that this unborn child might not survive for a reason she couldn’t begin to contemplate, not in this new world. Somehow, in her mind, Swan’s continued survival stood surety for her unborn child’s survival.

  Almost without noticing, she shoved the little diary, the daybook into her pantaloon pocket, discovered it wouldn’t fit. Leave it? Bring it with her to read tonight? Jenret wasn’t likely to be back, so she’d be alone except for Khar. “Don’t worry, Parse. We haven’t lost Swan yet.” She shrugged into her maroon boiled wool jacket, slid the diary into the larger patch pocket. Why not? She probably should leave a note for the librarian that she’d removed it from the premises, but she’d return it first thing in the morning. Why bother when it wasn’t even cataloged?

  “Don’t work too hard, steal all my glory, Parse,” she flung over her shoulder as she left, Khar’pern following.

  Per’la jumped on Parse’s slanted desk, waited, patient, while he made a note. “Khar is up to something.” Waited to see if the conversational gambit would be bait enough.

  “Um-hm,” Parse extracted another letter from its envelope, unfolded it, “she always is.” With an inward sigh, Per’la curled up, felt herself coasting down the pitch of the desk. Vexed at everything, she jumped down, stalked off.

  “See if I share anything more with you,” she snapped, and the ribbon on her tail crackled, a satisfying show of her indignation at being ignored.

  Her boot heels clicked crispl
y on the flagstones as she crossed the courtyard, sky graying with early dusk, scarlet, orange, and yellow leaves rasping across the path in the breeze. Time these days spun faster and faster, catching her up in its vortex and spinning her around with it, willy-nilly, octants passing, the phases of the Lady’s moons changing inexorably. The outline of six of the Lady’s moons floated low and faint on the horizon. Had it only been bare spring, just two Disciple moons visible when she and the others had set out for Marchmont to learn why the borders between Canderis and Marchmont had been arbitrarily closed, and what—if anything—they could do about it? Autumn now, winter fast behind it, and with it the turn of a new year and the baby’s birth.

  She shivered, pretended it was the breeze after the stuffiness of the library. No need to go outside and around from the wing that housed the library to reach the Seeker General’s suite, but she’d craved the hiatus, a pause for fresh air, fresh thoughts, a chance to reorder her mind. Except whatever order she chose, she always came back to the past. What she’d become embroiled in that spring was war, and love, and confusion. Martial? Marital? Amazing what a transposition of letters could do, and each equally confusing and injurious to one’s well-being. Despite herself, her feet halted at the bronze statue of Matthias Vandersma and Kharm, first Bondmates, first Seekers Veritas of them all. A surreptitious, superstitious touch for luck at Matthias’s bronze, bent knee and at the ghatta Kharm’s head, both worn smooth and slick from generations of such touches. And for some reason tonight Khar’pern sprang onto the statue, vibrant fur alive against metal as she rubbed against both frozen figures, purr rumbling in her chest. What had gotten into the ghatta now?

  “You’re coming with me to see the Seeker General, aren’t you?” Worried, she waited until Khar unwreathed herself and caught up. “You’d like to see Koom, wouldn’t you?” Truth was she didn’t want to face Swan Maclough alone, see the beloved face strained with pain, the once plump, paunchy body gaunt, ceaselessly shifting to find a comfortable spot. And her reaction, she knew all too well, might be to burst into hopeless tears. So much for her training in self-control as a eumedico. Her previous, almost-constant exposure to the Seeker General’s debility during the early days had temporarily inured her, but these occasional flying visits threw Swan’s increasing weakness into her face, the wasting freshly painful each time.