Songs of the Earth (56 page)

‘I’m not sure. Tanith says she’ll know more when she Heals me again.’

‘Pray Goddess she Heals you quickly, then. I’ve missed you.’
All of you
.

The image she slipped into his mind flushed him to the roots of his hair, and Aysha’s eyes danced. He kissed her to hide the blush, and made promises with his mouth that he couldn’t wait to keep.

‘Will you come and visit me later? I need to see Alderan.’

She nodded. ‘Will you ask him about Savin?’

‘Yes. I think he owes me the truth now. This is the second time Savin’s tried to kill me, and I want to know why. I’ve done nothing to warrant this. Did you know him?’

‘No. He was long gone by the time I came here, but I’ve heard the other Masters talk.’ Blue eyes flicked over his face, searching. ‘Have a care with him. He is not what he seems to be.’

The words echoed Savin’s in the rooftop garden so strongly that for an instant Gair thought she was talking about Alderan.

‘I will, but I can’t promise I’ll be gentle when I catch up with him.’

A smile curved her lips. ‘I would expect nothing less from a Leahn.’

When he tried to stand, she seized his arm with both hands. ‘I’ll not let them keep you from me,’ she whispered, dragging him down for a kiss. ‘Not again.’

Her passion startled him, even as it reawakened old hungers. Memories of her in his arms flooded his head, drowning him in sensation. How much of it was him and how much her, pouring her need into his mind, he could not say, but it was all he could do to pull away.

‘Later,’ he said. His voice was husky. He felt no weakness in his limbs now; he was on fire.

‘Later,’ she agreed, smoothing her hands across his chest. Her touch burned right through the linen. Then she flashed into the shape of a kestrel and darted for the open window.

Gair stepped off the stairs onto the second landing and steadied himself against the wall. The short walk to the Masters’ quarters was turning out to be harder than he’d expected. He remembered the way well enough, and the corridors and stairs in themselves were not too taxing on his weakened body, but the assault on his memory had taken it out of him; he wanted to curl up in a ball with his arms over his head.

Every face he saw tickled at his memory, then suddenly filled his head with sharp colour as he recalled a lecture, a joke, a fragment of his testing. No sooner had he brushed past one recollection than another was fluttering around him, each tied to the next in a never-ending rope, like a conjurer’s gaudy handkerchiefs.

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. At least this corridor was empty. Everything inside his head felt fragile, bright as a bruise and twice as tender; on the floors below, where the passageways were busier, even turning to acknowledge a greeting had left him floundering in broken memories. Goddess alone knew what it would be like when he faced Alderan on the other side of that panelled oak door. But he had to do it. He had to know the truth, once and for all.

Gair’s knock met with a distracted acknowledgement from inside. When the door remained closed, he lifted the latch and let himself in, braced for memories to rain down on him—

—except they didn’t. His first meeting with Alderan must be far enough in his past to lie outside Tanith’s shield. Grateful for the relief, he closed the door behind him.

Alderan sat at a heavy lion-footed table behind a rampart of books. The fingers of his left hand marked places in one volume whilst his right traced the text of another, open in front of him. A pencil was clamped between his teeth.

‘Just put it down over there,’ he said, gesturing with the pencil at a side-table equally overloaded with books.

‘Put what down?’ Gair asked.

Alderan looked up and blinked in surprise. ‘I was hoping it was my lunch, but you are just as welcome a sight.’ He closed the books with their pages interleaved to keep his place and stood up. ‘I would have come down to the infirmary, you know, saved you the journey. Would you care for some tea?’

‘No, thank you.’

From a cupboard over the hearth Alderan took out mismatched mugs and a flower-painted teapot that had seen better days. The kettle was already steaming on its hook over the flames.

‘You look better,’ he said, spooning tea into the pot from a wooden canister. ‘Sure you don’t want some tea?’

‘What I want are some answers,’ Gair told him. ‘I want to know why Savin tried to kill me, and I want you to tell me the truth this time.’

The old man bridled. ‘I have always told you the truth.’

‘Just not all of it. Every time I ask you something you give me enough of an answer to be going on with and avoid the meat of the question. I want the whole truth now, gristle and all.’

Alderan dropped the wooden scoop back in the canister and put it away. He closed the cupboard door and gestured at the hide-covered chairs flanking the hearth. ‘Sit yourself down, lad.’

‘I’d rather stand. Alderan, you and I need to talk.’

‘And talk we shall, but please sit down. You’re looming.’

‘I’m what?’

‘Looming. Why do you Leahns have to be so blasted tall? My joints are stiff enough without getting a crick in my neck as well.’

Teeth clamped against the tide of questions rising inside him, Gair took a seat. Alderan filled the teapot, then turned back to the desk to scribble a few words on a scrap of paper tucked into one of the books.

Gair thought it was a wonder the old man could concentrate in all that clutter. The shelves lining the walls were stacked with boxes and books, and peculiar objects of brass and glass. Scrolls piled on the window-seat like cords of wood and an archipelago of paper dotted the sun-faded rug. In the few places the clutter hadn’t consumed, the dust was thick enough to write in.

When the tea was brewed to Alderan’s satisfaction, he poured two mugs and dolloped a generous spoonful of honey in each. Then he handed one to Gair, having apparently forgotten that tea had been declined.

Gair set the mug down on the hearth tiles by his feet.

‘Your health’s improved since I saw you last,’ the old man said as he settled into the other chair. ‘The Healers have done good work.’

‘Tanith says she’s not quite done yet, but she seems confident that I’ll recover.’

‘You were lucky she was here. Saaron is a good Healer, one of the best, but he is a battlefield sawbones compared to her. Tanith has a deftness of touch with the mind that is really quite remarkable, even among her people. She’s earned her Master’s mantle twice over with you.’ Alderan blew on his tea to cool it. ‘Yes, another few hours and she would have been gone.’

‘Gone? Where?’

‘Back to her people. Didn’t she tell you?’

‘No, she never mentioned it.’

‘On the sea-elf ship,
Morning Star
. K’shaa was due to sail the next day with Tanith on board, but she persuaded him to wait.’

‘I thought she didn’t finish her training until the summer, like the others.’

‘Not her. We gave her her mantle last year, but she offered to stay on for another twelvemonth to help Saaron, before her obligations to the White Court called her back. That was an extremely fortuitous choice, as far as you’re concerned. Without Tanith to Heal you, I very much doubt that we would have you back in one piece.’ The old man sipped at the scalding brew. ‘We thought for a while that we might not get you back at all.’

‘Was I really that badly hurt?’

‘Be under no illusions, Gair, you were dying,’ he said softly. ‘What Savin did to your mind, well, there’s a reason why it’s called a reiving. It’s a violent, penetrative act for the sole purpose of obtaining something the reiver has no right to take, and it could have left you no more able to take care of yourself than a babe in arms.’

Alderan was far blunter than Tanith had been; her explanation had spared him the worst.

The old man eyed him steadily through the steam from his cup. ‘Drink your tea, lad, before it gets cold.’

Gair picked up his mug. ‘I don’t understand what he wants from me, Alderan. I’ve done nothing to him – why does he want to kill me?’

‘He’d only kill you if you got in his way and he couldn’t make use of you. How much do you remember about him?’

‘Not much, really – he came to the inn in Mesarild, then there was the storm when we were on board the
Kittiwake
, but what happened out beyond the Five Sisters?’ Gair sighed. ‘Next to nothing, so far. Tanith’s shield seems to be doing its job.’

‘You told Saaron that you thought Savin was going to come here, looking for something – whatever it was he couldn’t find it in
your head – and yet now you say you don’t remember anything of what happened.’ Alderan’s eyes were sharp as glass.

‘I don’t remember anything definite. It’s more an impression, a sense of urgency. I remember a feeling of …
need
. Hunger. A feeling that something he wants more than anything else in the world is only just out of his reach.’

‘And that is what made you think he is going to come here? It must have been a strong impression.’

‘He was right inside my head, Alderan. It doesn’t get much stronger than that.’

A wolfish grin split the old man’s beard. ‘Fair point. I think you’re wrong, though,’ he added. ‘Savin can’t come here, and if you’ll forgive me a rather long-winded story, I’ll explain why. More tea?’

Gair shook his head. ‘I’ll forgive you the story, as long as it’s complete. Don’t leave anything out this time.’

‘Take that tone with me again, my lad, and I’ll tell you nothing at all.’

‘Fine! Tell me nothing and next time he really will kill me!’ Gair thrust himself out of the chair and began pacing. ‘From the beginning you’ve told me only what you felt like about Savin. You even reassured me – more than once – that he wasn’t dangerous, that he was curious about me but meant me no real harm. Then he sent a storm that nearly sank the
Kittiwake
with us on board, not to mention Dail and his crew. And now this – he appears out of nowhere and tries to turn my brains out through my ears!’

‘We don’t know for certain that he sent the storm.’

‘Who else could it have been, Alderan? He’s horribly strong.’

‘Can’t get much past you, can I?’ Using the sleeve of his robe as a pot-holder, Alderan topped up the teapot with the kettle and swirled the tea around. ‘Yes, I think it was Savin who sent the storm. He flooded half of southern Syfria with it, all because he couldn’t care less what happens to anyone else once he’s had his way.’

‘What a pleasant individual.’ Gair stopped pacing and leaned on the windowsill. The sudden burst of energy had drained away from him, leaving him trembly as a chick. Saints, his head boomed.

‘Aye, well, you don’t know the half.’

‘Tell me what he wants from me, Alderan, so I can stay out of his way. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for him.’

On the hearth, the kettle pinged as it cooled. Porcelain clinked; a spoon chimed in a cup. Gair let his eyes close, wishing his headache would go.

‘Savin is the son of two
gaeden
, born here on the Isles,’ Alderan began. ‘His mother was very young, and the pregnancy was difficult. Savin himself was born early, but seemed healthy enough, and he was prodigiously gifted – we knew that from the outset. Within a day of his birth he was calling to his mother’s mind when he was hungry. We thought he might very well grow up to be the most powerful
gaeden
we had ever had. We were right.’

He sat back in his chair and sipped his tea. Gair watched from the window.

‘So what went wrong?’

‘As he grew, we realised that in addition to being extremely powerful, he was going to be cruel. He was killing flies from his cradle. He set them on fire, incinerated them in mid-air. As he got older, he started compelling his nurse to do whatever he wanted, from fetching toys and sweetmeats to performing tricks for his amusement. When his mother Aileann found out, she tried to punish him. He set fire to her, too.’

Horror curdled Gair’s stomach.

‘She was horrifically burned, and she died not long after. It would have been a mercy if it had killed her instantly.’ The old man stared into his cup. His face was set, his tone colourless. ‘Savin’s father tried to kill him. We’re not quite sure what happened, except that Teosen was compelled to turn the knife on
himself. We found the poor man on the floor, on the opposite side of the room to his skin. The boy was six years old.’