The Storm Witch (9 page)

“Twins don’t bed with each other.” It was half a question.

Dhulyn smiled and gave him half an answer. “I only said it was something like.”

 

“I would rather give
you
a child.” Parno Lionsmane had never said these words aloud, but he got the reaction he expected from his Partner.

Dhulyn smiled the smile she saved only for him and shook her head. “We’ve been Partnered, what, seven years? If you were likely to give me a child,” she pointed out, “it would have happened already.”

“You’ve never Seen anything?” He’d never wanted to ask, but now that they were talking about it, he had to press his advantage. He might not ever have another such excuse. She
had
been behaving oddly the last few days, but he’d put it down to nostalgia, being at sea reminding her of the childhood she’d had on the
Black Traveler
once Dorian the Schooler had rescued her from the slavers.

“Once I thought so. I Saw myself laying out a game of Tailors with a young redheaded girl. Not so dark as I, but not so golden as you.”

“And you thought . . .”

“And I thought. But it turned out to be the young woman who is now Queen of Tegrian.”

Parno laughed out loud. “You’re right. She could have been ours, if we went by coloring alone.” He frowned. “I’ve never fathered a child, that I know of.”

“Well, I’m sure I would have noticed if I had ever quickened.” She have him such a look of wide-eyed innocence that Parno cuffed her shoulder.

“How is it you think that it never happened?”

“I was given enough potions and drugs in the years between the breaking of the Tribes and the time Dorian rescued me. I always assumed that had something to do with it.”

“Shall we ask a Healer, the next time we run across one?” This time Parno thought he might have gone too far. There again was that white stiffness in Dhulyn’s face that he’d seen in the hold of the
Catseye,
when they had first met the Nomads. Her eyes narrowed, and she seemed to be looking within.

“We’ll still look for a Seer to train you,” he assured her, more to break the silence than for any other reason. “That’s still our first goal. I’m just saying, if we should happen to meet with a Healer, that’s all.”

“Yes,” she said. Then she cleared her throat and said it again, more naturally this time. “Yes, why not? The next time we run across a Healer, we’ll see what can be done.”

“After all, you still have your woman’s time, that must mean something.”

She nodded. “But being that you cannot give me a child,” she said. “What are your thoughts about giving Darlara one?”

“I have no objection, in principle.” Parno cleared his own throat, half-surprised to find that he did not. “Even if you and I have a child together,” he pointed out, “we wouldn’t raise it ourselves.”

Again, Dhulyn nodded. Most Mercenaries took steps
not
to produce children. Still, the Common Rule gave guidance even for things that rarely happened. Mercenaries who had children with other Mercenaries, not always Partners, never raised the children themselves. There was always one Schooler—at the present time it was Nerysa Warhammer, Parno’s own Schooler—who kept a nursery for such children, and sometimes ordinary families were found. The life of a Mercenary Brother did not allow for the rearing of children. Tough and skilled as they were, few Mercenaries lived long enough to be certain of bringing up a child. The time was sure to come when, as Dhulyn always said, the arrow would have your name on it.

“Almost a month to cross the Long Ocean,” he said.

“Usually time enough, if a man and a woman are determined.”

“My soul—” Parno broke off, then reconsidered. There was one way to check, and Dhulyn would have thought of it long before he did. Her woman’s time had passed, but only
just
. Her Sight would be at its clearest. “Would you See for me? Would you use the tiles?”

Parno watched her face closely, nodding to himself when the usual reluctance, the flaring of the nostrils and the twist of the lips that always followed this suggestion didn’t come. She still wasn’t ready to tell him why she was looking secretly at the tiles.
Goes on much longer, I’ll have to ask,
he thought.

Dhulyn pushed herself upright and rounded the table, laying her hand on Parno’s shoulder as she passed him. Her small pack was on the lower bunk where she’d pushed it after stowing away the weapons she had cleaned. The ancient, silk-lined olive wood box that held her personal set of vera tiles was in a pocket she’d made along one side. She rounded the table again and sat down opposite Parno, setting the box on the table between them. She searched through the tiles until she’d found Parno’s own tile, the Mercenary of Spears, and gave it to him.

“Close your hand around it,” she said. “Think of the question you’d like answered.”

“How does that help?” he asked. “I don’t bear a Mark.”

“It does no harm,” she said, as she sorted out the Marked tiles, the ones that did not form a part of the ordinary gambler’s vera set. The straight line, representing the Finder; the Healer’s rectangle, the Seer’s circle with a dot in the center, the Mender’s triangle, long and narrow like an Imrioni spearhead. The only unique tile, the Lens, was in its own tiny silk bag, drawstrings made from thin braids of Dhulyn’s own hair. She set aside one each of the Marked tiles, then made sure all the other sets, the coins, cups, swords, and spears, along with the remaining Marks, were facedown. Placing her hands palms down on the tiles she shuffled them, all the time concentrating on Parno’s question.

“You’re green as a grass snake, are you going to be sick?”

“Idiot! Out of the way!”

“B
UT CAN HEAR YOU
better
when you play.”

Parno Lionsmane let the chanter of his pipes fall from his lips. “Which is a fine thing for them, but is doing nothing for me.”

“Your mind relaxes with the music,” Darlara said.

Parno rubbed the back of his neck with the hand not holding his pipes. He had an idea. “Tell them to be ready.”

He set his pipes on the deck in front of him and shut his eyes, taking three deep breaths and letting them out slowly. He let his eyes fall open and fixed them on his chanter, the third sound hole down. Another three breaths. Nothing but the sound hole. A hole was nothing. Absence. No sound and no hole.

Suddenly his throat closed and his stomach dropped as a wave of fear washed over him, pimpling his skin and setting his heart hammering. He blinked, blew out his breath sharply, and looked up. The fear subsided, but his heart still hammered.

“There. Felt that.”

“Anything wrong with making me feel happy?” Parno could hear the annoyance in his voice.

“Fear’s the easiest to be sure of. Happy feels different for everyone.”

Parno nodded. That was undoubtedly true. He leaned over to pick up his pipes, and when he glanced up, Darlara was smiling at him.

“Wouldn’t have known you were afraid, if I hadn’t known what was coming.”

Parno stood up. “I’ve been afraid before,” he said. “I know fear won’t hurt me.”

Darlara’s smile changed, and he found himself smiling back.

 

Parno was easing the door of the cabin shut, but at a sound from behind him, he relaxed, letting the concentration of the Hunter’s
Shora
dissipate. Not even he could walk into Dhulyn’s room without awakening her.

“Out of curiosity,” she asked, her rough silk voice coming from the dark shadow that was the lower bunk. “Where is Captain Malfin sleeping?”

“When Malfin’s on watch, Darlara isn’t.” Parno sat down on the end of the bench nearest him, the air bag of his pipes letting out a bleat as it pushed against the table’s edge.

“I heard you in the night, playing to the Crayx.”

There was light enough coming through the shutters that he knew she could see him nodding. “They can hear me, that’s certain. And when they answer, I can—almost—hear them. Darlara says that if I stayed here, the Pod sense would awaken fully, eventually.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told her that for Mercenaries there is no ‘eventually.’ ”

Dhulyn rolled to sit upright, swinging her legs free of her blankets. “There’s that.” She pulled up one leg, resting the heel of her foot on the hard wooden edge of the bunk and wrapping her arms around her knee.

Parno considered telling her about the fear, then decided against it. She would find a way to laugh at him about it. “They don’t speak, exactly, but I do get glimpses,” he told her instead. “They see the world differently.”

“Parno, my heart, they live underwater.”

Dhulyn got to her feet, pulled her sleep tunic off over her head and reached for her linen trousers and multicolored vest, lying over the bench where she had left them.

He waved her observation away. “But think about what that means. Even in the smallest things.” He frowned, searching for an example. “For us, ‘down’ is only a direction to fall—however carefully we might control the falling. For the Crayx, ‘down’ is another right, or left, north, or south.” He shook his head. “I’m not explaining it well, but better, I think, than it was explained to me.”

“It’s hard to explain what you take for granted as normal.” Dhulyn frowned, reaching around to her left to tie her first sword sash. “Do the Nomads share their thoughts with the Crayx?”

“Just like Racha birds and their Clouds, yes. But there’s more. All adult Nomads can see through the Crayx’s eyes, and the Crayx through theirs. With the Racha, only the bonded Cloud can hear the bird’s thoughts. But while you are with a Crayx, if it shares the thoughts of another, you can share them, too.”