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paying attention. Then she heard nothing at all until Timka shook her awake
after what seemed three seconds later.
"Come on. Come on. Wake up, will you." Skeen groaned and rolled onto her back.
Her lashes were stuck together and her mouth felt like something had died and
rotted there. She rubbed at her eyes, licked dry lips, forced herself up.
"Wha& " Timka started pacing fretfully about the room, alternating bursts of
energy with slumps. "Min," she said. "Min flying over. Min circling round.
Getting closer. I can feel them."
Skeen grunted, fumbled back the covers, and swung her legs over the side of
the bed. She didn't feel up to coping with this right now. She sighed and
blinked, looked vaguely around. "Telka?"
"No no, not till they pin us. It's her Holavish."
Trying to ignore the upheaval below her ribs, the throbbing of her head, Skeen
pushed onto her feet. "We located yet?" She looked around for her clothing,
saw her trousers and walked slowly, carefully to them, squatted beside them.
"How much time if we aren't?"
"No, not yet. I don't know."
Skeen reached for her trousers, grunted as she nearly overbalanced. With an
exclamation of disgust, Timka darted over to her, picked up the trousers,
shook them off, tossed them on the bed. Hands on hips she turned round looking
for Skeen's tunic, saw it crumpled in one corner, darted to it, shook it out
too, and tossed it beside the trousers. She shoved her shoulder under Skeen's
arm, muscled her back to the bed, left her sitting while she poured some water
in a basin and slopped a washrag in it. She slapped the dripping rag onto
Skeen's face, scrubbed the remnants of sleep from her eyes, then pushed the
rag into Skeen's hand. "This is so boorring. You. The Poet. Making fools of
yourselves." She fetched a towel, tossed it to Skeen. "Get yourself dressed
and do the packing while I see to the horses." She sniffed and went out,
slamming the door behind her.
"No need to yell," Skeen muttered.-
Saddlebags and pack thumping against her legs, Skeen walked out the door. A
heavy fog filled the court; condensation dripped from every edge, adding to
the melancholy of the pale gray light. The damp crept into every crevice,
started runnels through her hair; she swiped at her face, her head throbbing;
the thought of getting on a horse and galloping off made her bones ache. The
clop of ironshod hooves, dark forms looming in the fog. Timka came up with the
horses, her eyes huge in a pinched face, almost in a panic. "Circling in," she
whispered.
Skeen sighed, rubbed at her temple, trying to think. "No Hunger to keep them
off us, hmm, confuse them. Maybe the river any water-Min there?" She slung
the bags behind the saddles, tied them down, strapped on the pack. "Or can you
tell?"
Timka didn't answer until they were leading the horses through the arch. "No,"
she said. "The river is empty."
Her mount clopping behind her, Skeen started off through the fog toward the
ferry landing south of town. "Five days to Oruda," she said. "From what I
picked up last night, it's open country, savannah." She wiped at her face,
drawing the back of her hand across her mouth, sighed, and kept her eyes on
the bit of ground visible around her feet. "Might diddle them some if you swam
the river to Oruda. I'll take your clothes with me, meet you there."
Timka was a blurred shape in the fog, her expression veiled, the color of her
eyes not green but a shadowy gray. She walked along gazing at Skeen, saying
nothing.
"I will meet you," Skeen said patiently, "my word on it. Besides, I've got to
go there. You can depend on that if you don't trust me."
Timka continued to gaze at her, saying nothing. The ferryhouse was a gray blur
ahead, more of a stain set deep in the fog than a solid form. Then she nodded
and began pulling loose the ties at wrist and neck. She tossed blouse and
skirt to Skeen, shifted to a large cat-form and went bounding off into the
fog.
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Skeen rolled the clothing up, strapped the roll into Timka's saddlebag,
clipped a rope lead to the bridle on Timka's mount, then started on, not
altogether sure she'd see the Min again, and regretting the possible loss of
her companion more keenly than she'd expected. Timka was a puzzle she was only
beginning to unravel, showing interesting possibilities as travel and trouble
abraded away that irritating surface.
She woke the ferryman, argued him into taking her across, then rode along a
rutted road between two hedges, the faint rose Hush of the morning sun
directly head of her. Already the nightcool was dissipating, though the heat
seemed to thicken rather than melt away the fog. She rode without hurry,
feeling relieved of pressure now that Timka had gone off on her own for a
little, amused at the contradiction she held within herself, missing the Min
yet glad to be free of her and her problems& at least for a while. She thought
about whistling, she felt so good, but she was enjoying the distant hollowness
of the sounds around her the steady clip-clop of the horses' hooves, the
jingle from the bridles, the creaking of the leather, and farther off a
birdcall, the honking low of a large beast, an occasional splash. Every sound
separate and entire, framed by a narrow line of silence. The aches and
debilities of a morning-after melting out of her, she settled into the saddle,
her body moving in easy unison with the horse until she felt adrift and
unconcerned about it.
The sun floated higher and the fog began to lift. The water dripping from
branches, leaves, gathered on grass blades disappeared not so much drying up
as being sucked back into the air and into whatever it was clinging to. The
hedges broke apart into separate bushes, then vanished, giving way to open
grasslands with trees scattered about, singly and in small groves. The horses
were well-fed, rested, and inclined to run, making rough going for a while
before she got them settled to a steady walk. She was early on the road and
had it to herself. The ferryman had groused continually from the moment she
routed him out of bed, cursing her and all her kind, not repeating himself
once the entire time it took to cross the Rekkah. Entertained by his fluency
and versatility, she'd handed him a silver bit instead of. the three coppers
that was his usual fee. It pleased her to think Timka would have been
disgusted with her for the waste.
By noon she'd sweated a skin of water around her body and was back to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]