The Farris Channel (35 page)

So he peeled off to hunt up the people she kept listing as she marched down the hall. He spread the word for a meeting in Sian’s weaving area, then rejoined Lexy as she alternately healed and grilled BanSha and Tuzhel.

They set up a double channel watch on Tuzhel, though he seemed to have recovered his ambition to disjunct. Still, he was deep into the process and could be swept away at any moment by irrational convictions based on Need.

Then Lexy insisted on visiting Fengal and Aislinn. Dayyel, Bruce’s wife, opened the door. Bruce’s daughter Iriela was there with the new baby, Wade. Bruce was sitting on the edge of Fengal’s bed with Aislinn, talking about Rimon as a child. It was Delri this and Zeth that, a story of mischief and mishap during Rimon’s First Year making him sound very much like BanSha.

Lexy stormed past Dayyel, fields flying. “What are you doing! This is no time for a wake! My father is not dead yet, not unless we abandon him to the Raiders.”

Quietly Bruce stood, pulling himself to his full height, his craggy, weathered features sagging in grief. His nager began to recover its discipline when Fengal said, “I’d gladly ride with any rescue party, but I think I’d fall off my horse.”

“Make that a definite,” said Solamar, having worked on the concussion, though the fracture was healing well.

“Look,” said Fengal, “Tuzhel sent a message with Bruce about how sorry he was and he didn’t mean to hurt me, but only to get away. I believe him. It was stupid to be caught off guard by a disjunction candidate.”

Lexy nodded, zlinning the other channel. “I think Tuzhel will make it, but now we have to rescue my father. Aislinn, you take care of Fengal. Dayyel, Iriela, stay here as much as you can. Val just told me the Council is having a session right now. Bruce, you should come with us and talk to them about Dad.”

* * * * * * *

When they arrived at the dining hall Council meeting, Jhiti, still mud spattered, was reporting, standing before the Council’s line of tables, facing a throng of desperately curious, alarmed and horrified residents of the Fort. He stopped speaking.

Bruce, Kahleen and Garen plowed a wedge into the crowd for Lexy, Solamar, BanSha and Rushi to follow. People made way, some grudgingly and others with respect, but most simply wanting to see what would happen when Lexy tackled Alind and the Council.

Jhiti resumed, “Delri was trailing behind us. I signalled Kreg and Lhazron to fall back and escort Delri. His last order was for us to get BanSha and Tuzhel back to the Fort, and protect the Companions who were on their way out to us, so I only detailed those two to stay with Delri while Jokim, carrying Tuzhel, and I rode ahead.

“I will remember his last words until the end of my days. As he swatted our horses into motion from behind, he yelled, “Clire is leading that band and she’s still pregnant!”

One of the Councilors asked with shrewd skepticism, “How far did you say he was from the Freebanders when he collected Tuzhel and turned back toward you?”

Jhiti gave them his best professional estimate. The guards and scouts in the audience all knew every bush and tree across the valley and had given many of the groves names. Jhiti told them where he was and where Rimon was and where the Freebanders were just as Rimon turned back toward them and the Freebanders sent a party after him.

Xanon, who had positioned himself behind Alind at the center of the Council table, bent over the speaker’s shoulder and told him something. The man shook his head stubbornly. Xanon insisted.

Silence fell as everyone tried to hear the quiet exchange. Solamar heard the Councilor concede that Rimon could have zlinned Clire with the Freebanders if she had in fact been there.

So why would Rimon have lied?
These people just made no sense to him.

Jhiti reported on the shifting of Tuzhel to Jokim’s horse and his worry about Rimon’s horse. Jhiti had figured they could reach the Companions who had brought remounts for them all and then they’d make it home fine.

Jhiti, his renSime nager trembling, choked out, “Then Delri’s horse foundered. Delri catapulted over its head. He didn’t make the tuck. I saw Delri hit head first.”

BanSha lunged forward, drawing breath to contradict that, but Solamar and Lexy pulled him back between them. Rushi edged closer, chewing her lip to keep from crying.

Jhiti glanced at them, then said into the thick pall of gloom, “I was too far away to feel any deathshock. Kreg and Lhazron were closer when Delri started to go down. They didn’t react as if Delri died when he hit the ground. I saw the Raiders whips get Kreg, one around the neck and the other around one forearm, lashing his tentacles. They rode their horses in opposite directions. Pulled him apart.

“I saw Lhazron un-horse a Raider. They went down in a heap and rolled and I think the Raider must have died. Another Raider reared his horse and the hooves and full weight of the horse came down on Lhazron’s chest and the Raider’s too. I felt neither deathshock. Delri’s would have split the ambient like a thunderbolt. I was too far, I wouldn’t have felt it. I don’t think I would have.

“The Raiders did react as if Delri’s deathshock had reached them. They didn’t come on after us. They dismounted and crouched down around the dead. Then they picked Delri up, slung his body over the horse of the dead Raider, and set off for the Raider band. Trees and then the hills cut us off and I never saw them again. If the band had continued south toward Gen Territory to raid, we’d have seen them along the road before we reached the Fort. I’m sure they turned back to Shifron.

“If Delri didn’t die when he hit the ground, he must have been dead when the Raiders took him. After all, who would move a living Sime who was unconscious?”

Who indeed?
Solamar glanced at Lexy and knew they were both thinking of poor Tuzhel who had been shoved around while he was unconscious and just barely alive. It was relatively easy to bring a renSime back to psychospatial orientation. A channel was another matter, and a channel like Rimon, maybe Bruce could manage it, but few others would dare try with a head injury. Maybe Clire would.

Why would Raiders take Rimon’s dead body?
That made no sense to Solamar. Raiders didn’t even stop to collect their own dead.

He whispered as much to Lexy, offering her hope, but she replied, “If Clire sent them to capture my father, they’d bring his body as proof they’d done what she ordered.”

If Clire is alive?
She’d be,
Solamar calculated quickly,
twenty-four weeks pregnant now.
Would she still be capable of the intricate nageric control necessary to offset another channel’s psychospatial disorientation?
If not, we might go out there to rescue a raving lunatic.

Lexy squeezed his hand as she worked through the same thoughts, then she strode into the clear space before the table. “If he’s that badly injured, we have to get him back into Bruce’s care. We have to go, now.”

Suddenly everyone was talking at once. Alind consulted the other Councilors and Xanon, but Solamar couldn’t hear.

Alind called for attention. “If Rimon did survive that fall, and was moved while alive after a head injury, he’ll have used up a great deal of selyn, and even more fighting through disorientation. We’ve all noticed how unstable Farrises are. Clire went junct at the slightest provocation. If Rimon has survived, even for a short while, he will be junct by now too. Clire will see to it in revenge.”

BanSha lunged forward shouting, “He was alive! When they took him, he was alive. I zlinned it clearly. The Raiders didn’t murder him. I would have zlinned the deathshock. I zlinned the guards dying, like it seemed to take a thousand years. The whole ambient went stark white! That was the first deathshock I’d ever zlinned but I knew what it was. Solamar and Lexy taught me. I know what I zlinned and he’s not dead!”

The crowd broke into murmurs and Alind called them to silence. “He’s just a First Year channel,” explained Alind dismissively. “We forgive that outburst, young man, but it was not appropriate. When you finish your year, you’ll be allowed to testify officially, but not now.”

Alind then moved the discussion on to setting a time for Rimon’s funeral and assigning someone to dig the grave. Solamar drew BanSha back between him and Lexy where they could shelter him from the room’s ambient.

As the Council began to debate which to discuss first, where to put a monument to Rimon or who to appoint as the new head for the channeling staff, Solamar met Lexy’s glassy eyes. He had to get her out of there.

They worked their way back through the crowd as people expressed condolences to Lexy. Even supporters of the Council were listening to these new plans with dismay.

They emerged into bright daylight, the sun shafting between two black clouds. Ahead of them to their left, the sheep shearing was in progress, a portable pen filled with shorn sheep set up before the stables.

Solamar always thought that shorn sheep looked like the world’s most pathetic creatures, but today the ridiculous sight didn’t move him even to a smile. He just thought it was much too cold still to be denuding the animals.

Behind them people emerged from the dining hall, gathering in tightly clustered groups and talking earnestly.

Some of the runners Solamar had sent to gather the group he thought of as the real Fort Council found them marching across the yard toward Sian’s looms at the west end of the factory building.

BanSha and Bekka, not being children anymore, were no longer among the messengers. The leader was now Cody, a very young boy whose family had arrived with the Fort Unity people. A serious, earnest youngster, he was suitably impressed with being successor to BanSha. His parents were, as far as Solamar knew, staunch supporters of Rimon.

“It’s all set. Half an hour at Sian’s,” panted Cody. “We found everyone but Jhiti.”

Lexy looked at Solamar who returned her gaze gravely. “Jhiti has just finished his report,” she told Cody, “and he has to rest. We’ll talk to him later about the meeting, so you children can go on back to your schooling. Cody, aren’t you scheduled for cabinetmaking lessons?”

“Yes, and I’m getting good at it. I’m putting the finish on a table for Rimon’s new house. My last one was too rough, but this time I’m doing much better.”

Solamar stepped in front of Lexy who suddenly couldn’t breathe. “That’s great. I’ll come by to look later. Right now, you can all get back to what you were doing. I’ll certainly call on you the next time I have a confidential message to send around.”

All the children beamed, then ran in every direction. A few even headed directly for the school building.

Lexy began to breathe again. “Thank you.”

“Welcome,” he said, overcome with a tender love.

She injected a sad smile into the ambient that wasn’t on her face. “Not now, Solamar. I have to get through the real Council meeting. Let’s go talk to Sian.”

But the meeting didn’t get all the way to planning a rescue mission. They arrived while Sian was supervising the stowage of bales of raw wool near the dyeing vats. The place was almost empty, no one working in the carding room, nobody at the spinning wheels, and the looms were all empty. Some of them had parts missing.

Before they’d finished briefing Sian, people started arriving, each group with their own agenda for this meeting.

Last to arrive was Rinda, the Gen who represented Fort Hope on the new Council. Her nager was marbled with joy backed by grief and fear. She whirled right up to Lexy who was standing in the middle of the circle and said, “That Council has dug its own grave!”

She proceeded to tell everyone about the schism throbbing through the Fort.

The Council and a few supporters insisted they had to bury Rimon in absentia and put up an impressive monument to him, then forget him and go on to make the Fort into their own Fort. They were split, though. Many of those who had supported the new Council, because of Rimon’s disregard of the voice of the community, now remembered how his plans, schemes and preferences always worked out well. They had shoes, clean water, and good health because of Rimon’s choices. So some wanted to send a rescue party.

“They’re still arguing it among themselves,” the old woman reported. “If we send out a rescue party before they’ve convinced themselves, we’ll lose them all.”

Being young, BanSha was against waiting and here in this Council, his young voice mattered. “This is the second time the Raiders have gotten one of our channels.” In the sing-song chant of the
Zeor
game, he pointed out, “
This
time we’ll do better!”

Without Jhiti and Oberin, though, there wasn’t much they could do. They brainstormed four plans but all depended on the scouts and guards volunteering to go. It would take time, and much talking especially while Jhiti still believed Rimon to be dead.

They broke up to go their separate ways. Each had a list of people to talk to privately while BanSha exhorted them to remind everyone that this time they will do better. “We’ll rescue both of them!”

Solamar watched the meeting dissolve without Lexy’s objectives being met. They had respected her leadership, but the talk had erupted again and again with reports of key people wavering in their support of the Council.

Val motioned her Companion, Merie, on ahead and stopped by Lexy and Solamar. “You’re both off-schedule until noon tomorrow. Alind called a shutdown of the schedule tomorrow afternoon for Delri’s funeral.”

She choked up, took a deep breath, and adjusted her showfield. “I told him he couldn’t have a shutdown until sunset and he threatened to have me replaced. Frankly, that’s fine with me. I’m only doing this because Benart is way overloaded with the expansion for all these people. If we’re going to shut down for a couple of hours for the funeral, then I’ve got to double-schedule both of you between noon and shutdown to clear all the transfers. I can’t ask people to go to Delri’s funeral in Need. His ghost would haunt me forever!”