Jo Clayton - Diadem 4 - Maeve

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Maeve
Diadem, Book 4
Jo Clayton
1979
v1. Scanned 6 Dec 02. Spell-checked.
ISBN 0-87997-760-4
“Aleytys is a heroine as tough as, and more believable and engaging than, the general run of
swords-and-sorcery barbarians.” — Publishers Weekly
Aleytys, wanderer of the skies, seeker of the home planet of her mother’s super-race, wearer-slave
of the mind-enhancing diadem, is down on Maeve, forest planet of tree-dwellers and semi-humans. Her
aim to continue her quest, to shake her pursuers.
It’s an action-packed adventure filled with conflict and conspiracy, guerrilla warfare between the
tree-folk and the technology of the Company, and a face-to-face confrontation with the implacable
spider-beings from whom the diadem was stolen.
“The diadem belongs to the RMoahl,” said the spidery being.
“The diadem belongs to the wearer,” answered Aleytys. “It is not a simple piece of jewelry. You
imprisoned three souls in your treasure vault. How do you account to them for four hundred years of
solitary confinement?”
The RMoahl clicked his nipper claws impatiently. “What does it matter? We will never let slip away
what is ours.”
Aleytys shrugged angrily. “The three are vehemently opposed to returning to that vault. We fought
you before and won. I’ll always have help. Remember Lamarchos? I can’t always control the
summoning.
“Push me too far and men will die, no matter what I want.”
Book I: The Forest
Chapter I
Gwynnor crouched beside his lover, Amersit. A churning distaste stirred his insides as he watched
the strangers come down the side of the ship and approach the drieu, Dylaw. More of them coming to
put their damn feet on Maeve’s breast.
“One’s a woman,” Amersit whispered, his eyes glowing violet, like spring asters on the Maes. He
sniffed, then wiggled excitedly. “She smells ... ha ... good!”
Face folding in a grimace of repugnance, Gwynnor stared at the smugglers. “They wouldn’t come if
Dylaw stopped dealing with them.”
Mischief sparkling in his eyes, Amersit patted his shoulder. “Yeh, little one, and we wouldn’t have
any guns.”
Gwynnor rubbed his cheek against the hand resting on his shoulder. “Do we need them so much?”
He straightened his back, turning troubled eyes on his trail lover. “Do those guns really make any
difference when we face the energy weapons of the starmen?”
Amersit stroked the soft gray curls coiling close about Gwynnor’s head. “You take things so
seriously, little one. Relax. You know we haven’t got enough support from the people yet. Let the
starmen hit the villages a bit more and we’ll have them all storming the city. In the meantime, we make
them pay a little anyway for their raids. The day’s coming through. We’ll lock them tight in that damn city
and burn it down around their ears.”
“Someday. Always someday.” Gwynnor refused to let Amersit cheer him out of his depression.
“Hey.” Amersit stared at the group sitting on the deep black tradecloth. “The woman speaks cathl
maes. Dylaw looks like she hit him over the head with a rotten squash.”
I don’t like it.” Gwynnor moved away, glowering angrily at the red-haired woman. The sun shone off
the glowing mass of her hair, surrounding her head with a golden halo. He pinched his nostrils to shut out
her disturbing odor. “It means she had to come from the city. What if the city sent her, knowing we’re
here?”
Amersit slapped his hand on his thigh. “Ah, mannh, Gwynnor, you’re right. I didn’t think of that.
We’d better tell Dylaw.” He started to get to his feet, then hesitated. “If we interrupt the bargaining, he’ll
peel skin with a dull knife.” He rubbed a hand over his gray fuzz, a rueful grin turning the ends of his long
mouth.
“I’ll do it.” Gwynnor jumped up and walked with small, quick steps over to the bargainers. The
woman finished translating the drieu’s last speech to the starman and looked up at him, her blue-green
eyes bright with interest. Gwynnor sank his teeth into his tongue as he knelt before Dylaw, body in
question-submission.
The drieu frowned, his pointed ears twitching fretfully. Gwynnor knew he’d have a lot of explaining to
do later. Trying to speak softly enough to keep his words from her, he said, “The woman speaks the
cathl maes. It might be important to discover where she learned it.”
He saw Dylaw’s face go rigid as he digested the implications of the question. Gwynnor swallowed
this further indication of his leader’s stupidity. He struggled to suppress his growing sense of futility. Then
Dylaw’s hand moved through the ritual acknowledgment and dismissal.
Gwynnor rose and walked slowly away. He glanced briefly over his shoulder, his dark-green eyes
.involuntarily seeking hers ... blue-green like the sea on a bright day ... strange round pupils like small
targets ... so different, so different ... He wrenched his eyes free and settled beside Amersit, thigh against
thigh, drawing a little comfort from the contact.
The drieu, Dylaw, picked up one of the sample weapons. Turning it over in his hands he ran the tips
of his fingers over the checked grip, then along the blue-black of the metal parts. As he put the weapon
down he said, as casually as if mere curiosity prompted the question, “How do you come to speak the
cathl maes?”
Aleytys spread out her hands, the fingers long and golden in the rusty light of the orange sun. “Not in
the city. This is the first time I’ve put foot on this world.” She rubbed a forefinger beside her nose. “Do
you know another language?”
“I know some words of another tongue.” Dylaw spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “Why?”
“I have the gift of tongues, drieu Dylaw.” The corners of her mouth twitched at his look of blank
disbelief. “I can prove it. That language you know—would anyone in the city know it also?”
“Why should they learn what they don’t need to learn?” His mouth drew down in an unpleasant
sneer. “Few of them bother to learn enough cathl maes to give a man a proper good morning.”
She nodded. “That being so, give me a few words in that language.”
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Dylaw lifted his head and stared at her. “Watiximiscisco.
Ghinahwalathsa lugh qickiniky.”
She covered her eyes with the heels of her hands, wincing as the translator’s activity made her head
ache fiercely but briefly. When she looked up, she was smiling. “I speak in anger. I carry the fire of my
anger to the south.”
He nodded. “Laghi tighyet lamtsynixtighyet.”
“The best laugh is the very last laugh.”
“Lukelixnewef hicqlicu.”
“A hunter is a man of pride.”
Dylaw sat in silence, eyes turned toward the cold blue sky where the sun was a bronzed orange disc
creeping toward the zenith. Then his shallow, pale gray eyes, with their narrow slit pupils, ran over her
body and fixed on her face. “Remarkable,” he said dryly.
“It’s what I do for the Captain.”
“Are there more among the starfolk who can do this?”
“I don’t know.” She spread out her hands and shrugged. “I’ve never met any.”
The drieu, Dylaw, picked up the gun again, dismissing the talent as unimportant since he saw no way
to profit from it “If we bought weapons in Caer Seramdun, we’d pay only fifty oboloi. The maranhedd in
one phial alone should buy five hundred.”
When Aleytys translated this for Arel his dark, sardonic face expressed surprise and contempt. He
spoke briefly and forcefully, then jumped to his feet and stood waiting for her to give his answer to the
drieu.
“The Captain says if that is so, then he will take his merchandise elsewhere.” She started to rise.
“Yst-yst, woman. No need for such haste.” He tapped fingers on his thighs and waited for her to
settle herself. “Why not see if we can reach some kind of agreement rather than leave here having wasted
our time?” He pulled a bag made of leather from inside his gray homespun tunic. With deliberate
slowness he worked the knot loose on the drawstring, then thrust his stubby fingers inside and pulled out
a small glass phial. “One trom of maranhedd.”
The Captain leaned forward and spoke briefly.
Aleytys nodded. To Dylaw she said, “Fifty guns. Five hundred darts.”
“Four hundred guns and four thousand darts.”
Arel snorted when Aleytys translated for him. He snapped out an answer, a look of scorn on his dark
face.
Aleytys said calmly, “You dream, ergynnan na Maes. One hundred guns. Five hundred darts.”
Gwynnor turned his back on the disturbing sight of his leader bargaining as greedily as any huckster in
the market square. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.
“You said that before.” Amersit grinned widely, his mobile mouth stretching in the quick flashing smile
that usually delighted Gwynnor. “I wonder what the Synwedda would think of that red witch.”
“Tchah!”
“I doubt she’d say that.” He broke into a chuckle. “I daresay you’ve not had a woman yet, little love.
Trust me. That’s one fine woman, starbred or not.” He sniffed then pantomimed an exaggerated ecstasy.
“I won’t listen to you.” Gwynnor jumped up and ran to the kaffon and stood next to his own mount,
combing unsteady fingers through the kaffa’s thick fur, finding a measure of calm in the animal warmth of
the placid, dozing animal. He ignored the sound of voices continuing behind him.
The drieu, Dylaw, grunted. “Agreed. For three trom of maranhedd, five hundred weapons and ten
thousand darts.” He blinked round eyes, his slitted pupils little more than a narrow black line crossing the
silver-gray mirrors of his irises. His long hooked nose twitched its mobile tip as he dropped the leather
sack into Aleytys’ hand. “I presume the man from the stars will test this as usual, not trusting our word.”
Aleytys glanced at the Captain, then nodded. “We aren’t included in your people, ergynnan na Maes.
No doubt your word is good to your own. You’ll trust us to keep our part of the bargain?”
Dylaw’s mouth gash clamped shut; the gray fuzz patches over his round eyes slid together as he
frowned in irritation. “I trust your greed for maranhedd, gwerei. To cheat me now would mean empty
hands next year.”
“True.” As Aleytys handed the bag to the Captain, she switched languages. “He knows you’ll want
to test it before handing over the guns.”
“Yeah.” He dumped the three phials out of the bag and began peeling off the wax. Then pulled the
rolled leather stoppers out and poured a few grains of the drug from each phial into the palm of his free
hand. “Looks like dream dust all right.” He stirred the amethystine crystals with a forefinger, then poured
them back. Head twisted back over his shoulder, he called, “Vannick.”
The long, pale man came from the shadow of the ship’s tail, leaving Joran there. The little killer’s eyes
prowled the canyon, measuring the small band of natives, alert for any sign of trouble.
Arel handed the bag to his second. “Test.”
“Right.” Vannik scrambled up the ladder and disappeared into the ship.
The drieu, Dylaw, crossed his arms over his meager chest, dropped his head and stared at the
ground in front of his crossed legs. He let his leathery eyelids sink until the silver-gray was veiled, leaving
only narrow slits. He appeared to settle into a light doze.
Aleytys sighed and pushed the hair out of her face. The fitful breeze meandering down the canyon
alternately lifted and let fall gouts of coarse grit; now and then it played at her hair, sending loose, tickling
ends waving around her face. She touched Arel’s arm. “You’ve got some energy weapons stored there.”
She nodded at the ship. “You’d get a lot more for them.” She reached out and touched his knee. “Why?”
Pinching the flesh lightly, she grinned at him. “Though I think you’ve screwed these poor ignorant
creatures out of their back teeth. I can feel the cat inside you licking the cream off its whiskers. But
they’d really put out for energy weapons. They want them.”
“They’ll have to want. If I gave them energy guns, I’d have a Company search-and-destroy mission
on my tail. No thanks.”
“Oh.” She looked around the canyon. Dry barren walls. Small spring, its water carefully hoarded in a
cistern built from rough stone blocks joined with yellow-brown mortar. A few scraggly weeds, gray with
dust, clinging to the cracks of the rock. A small gray lizard ran a jagged race across the wall,
disappearing into one of the larger cracks.
“This is a damn inhospitable place.”
One eyebrow went up increasing the sardonic amusement in his face. “You expected me to land in
some farmer’s field?”
“I suppose that wouldn’t be too safe. It’s hard on me though, unless one of them would guide me
down from here.”
“He might.”
“For a price, maybe.” Aleytys rubbed her nose.
“That one’d sell his grandmother for more guns.”
“They hate us.”
“Why do you think they want the guns, love?” The crow-tracks at the corners of his eyes deepened
momentarily. “They don’t hunt the kind of game you’d want to eat.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? By selling them these guns you help them kill people.”
He shrugged. “Company men. If I had my way, I’d dump them all into a drone and junk it on the
nearest sun.” For an instant, hatred leaped from him across her sensitive nerves, along with hurt,
loneliness, and loss. Something bad out of his past, she surmised, knowing she’d never find out what it
was now that she was leaving him.
“I’ll buy the guns from you, Arel.”
“Don’t waste your money, Lee. You’ll need it to bribe your way onto a ship.”
She grinned. “I wasn’t about to give you all the jewels.”
“Keep them. I’ll supply the guns.”
She shook her head. “No, Arel. I know how close to the line you run. I’ll pay for the guns.”
“You don’t like owing people, do you.”
“It’s hard for me to take things. I ... I’ve learned to put a premium on my independence, Arel.” She
brushed her head with quick, nervous hands. “I’m going to pay my way from now on.”
“Dammit, Lee. You’ve earned ...”
“Then pay me off with money. I expect I’ll need it for living expenses when I make it to Star Street.”
“What about advice? Willing to take that?”
“Why not.”
“Don’t let anyone know about the jewels. When you get to the city, use everything you’ve got to find
a man you can trust before you let anyone see them.”
“Man?”
“Wei-Chu-Hsien Company believes in male supremacy, Lee. Most likely the only women you’ll find
in the city will be streetwalkers or menials like cooks and cleaners.”
“Phah!” She sniffed. “Their loss.”
He shrugged, then grinned. “When you start working on those grubs, let me do the bargaining. Even
with that on-off empathy of yours, you drive a lousy bargain. You give away too much.”
“Well, I don’t intend to set off trudging on foot across that mess.” She waved her hand at the cliffs
rising above the ship.
“I still think you should sign on with us.” He scowled at her. “You seemed to like it.”
“I did.” She stroked her fingers over his arm. “And the three of you, too.” Then she shook her head
and sighed again. “I have a baby somewhere. I’ve got to find him, Arel. He needs me more than you do.
And ... and there’s a lot more you don’t know about me. It’s not pretty.”
“I know your nightmares.” He reached out and slid his fingers down her cheek. “Well all miss you,
Lee. Even Joran.”
At that moment Vannik leaned out of the lock. “Captain.”
Arel looked around, one eyebrow sailing up into the tangle of black slanting across his forehead.
“Right stuff.”
“Then let down the sling.” Arel turned back to Aleytys. “I wouldn’t trust that bunch far as I could
throw one of those four-footed hairballs they ride.” Frowning at the patient, hunched figure of the drieu,
he curled fingers around her hand until the pressure hurt. “Probably slit your throat the minute we leave.”
She gently freed her hand. “No. I can protect myself. You should know that by now.”
He was silent a minute, then swung around. “Vannik, break out another half dozen guns and a
thousand more darts.”
Vannik’s shaggy eyebrows rose and he ran a bony hand through the white thatch on his head. Then
he moved back up the ladder, his awkward-looking body agile as a monkey.
“Wake your fuzzy little fanatic.” The Captain moved his long body around to face the native.
The lighter gravity of this world fooled Aleytys again as she attempted to follow his example. Her
heavy-world muscles overreacting, she caught herself at the edge of an undignified sprawl.
“Drieu Dylaw.”
“Yes, woman?”
“The weapons are ready. The Captain is anxious to leave before the city spies find him. I suppose
you’d like to get out, | too.” As the drieu started to stand, she said quickly, “How- [ ever, there’s another
thing. My service to the Captain concludes here and we part company.”
“Why tell me?”
“Name a price for supplying a kaffa and a guide to take me to the sea.”
A sudden fierce anger exploded from the stiffening figure of the drieu. Then he was on his feet,
turning to leave, unable to be in her presence any longer without destroying his honor by breaking trade
truce.
In the shadow of the wall, young Gwynnor’s eyes stayed fixed on her with a growing fascination
despite the fear which was turning his body cold.
The kaffa stirred nervously.
The gray lizard poked his head out of the crack, scuttled in a tight circle, eyes jerking from side to
side. A moment later he plunged back into his hiding place.
The wind sang down the canyon with an eerie mourning note, a dirge portending fateful events.
“A price, drieu Dylaw. More guns, more darts to fill them.” Her voice sang in his ears, whispering
temptation.
A small dust devil broke over the drieu’s feet, showering desiccated leaves and other debris on his
legs, breaking his mood. He shuddered and turned to face her, hating her all the more because he knew
he couldn’t refuse.
“I will not take you.” His voice was harsh and abrupt.
“I don’t expect that. You have your people to care for.”
“But I’ll ask those.” He swung a hand at the squatting figures. “If one will do it, then we can bargain.
If not ...”
Aleytys looked over scowling faces alike in their ingrained xenophobia. Then she focused on one
face, a young face twisted in the most malignant scowl of all. She reached out Touched the turmoil boiling
in him. Snatched the probe back.
Reeled under the impact of his confusion. The drieu stared at her, then turned his back on her.
“If one among you would take this—this person to the sea, our cause would benefit greatly. They
have offered additional guns and darts to pay for this service.” Aleytys could see the long muscles of his
neck tighten, then loosen. “Is any willing?”
Gwynnor ran the tip of his tongue over his lips as he fought the pull of the starwitch. He ... he must ...
he must ... no! He almost shouted the words, but clamped his lips over the impulse to speak, swallowing
the soaring words, afraid to answer, afraid to acknowledge her influence in any way. But the pull
strengthened. She reached out touching him tickling gently along his nerves whispering comecomecome
... until, his feet scraping heavily over the sand-littered stone, he stepped forward. “I ...” His voice
cracked. He cleared his throat and spat, grudging briefly the expenditure of his body’s moisture here in
this desert “I’ll do it.” He forced himself to meet Dylaw’s incredulous eyes, drawing back his narrow
shoulders in a mockery of stiff pride while his anger beat futilely at invisible seals. “Let the weapons be
my gift to the cause.” The words were proud also, but he felt hollow inside, knowing that the woman had
laid a spell on his soul.
“So be it Come, Musician, sit beside me till we find what your sacrifice can buy us.”
Chapter II
The ship rode an ascending whine into the sky, melting after a few moments into the sterile blue.
Southwest, a winding dark line marked the creeping progress of the Bylaw’s pack train. Aleytys shook
her hair out of her eyes and dug her heels into the kaffa’s sides.
The animal had an odd, loose-kneed gait that she found disconcerting, the dip and heave close to
making her trailsick. When she glanced for the last time into the canyon, then up at the sky, the ship had
vanished, cutting off her retreat. She felt awash, disoriented, even a little frightened. She pinched her lips
together, then sighed. Ahead, the boy’s slumped shoulders were eloquent of his troubled dislike for this
expedition. Aleytys caught wisps of anger and fear blown back to her like snatches of smoke torn apart
by a restless wind. The silence was heavy between them, broken only by the sweeping moan of the wind,
the schlupp schlupp of the kaffa pads, the creak of saddle leather.
“What’s your name?” she called to the boy.
He glanced back briefly, his round face clenched in a scowl, then swung forward again without
answering her.
Aleytys prodded the beast into a brief jolting run until she was riding beside the cerdd boy. “What’s
your name? It’s awkward not knowing.”
Grudgingly the boy muttered, “Gwynnor.” Then had to repeat it louder, as the wind snatched the
word away.
“Such anger, Gwynnor. Why?”
He stared sullenly at her.
“Don’t try to tell me I’m mistaken. Look. My name is Aleytys.” A corner of her mouth flicked up.
“Means wanderer. Appropriate, don’t you think?”
“So?” He shrugged and turned his shoulders until his back was to her. “I don’t want to talk.”
“You mean you don’t want to talk to me.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be a fool. You can’t ignore me. I won’t let you. I refuse to ride beside a lump.”
“Duyffawd!”
Her eyebrows rose. “Most impolite.”
“You laugh? Ah, Mannh! What do you want on our world?”
“Nothing.” She sighed and tried for a more stable position on the kaffa’s limber back. “Nothing but
to quit it as fast as possible.”
Disbelief hung in a fog around him. “You’re here.”
“A waystop. That’s all.”
Against his will he found himself responding to her calm, friendly tone. “Why didn’t you go on with
the smuggler?”
“This world is as far on my way as the Captain goes. At Maeve, he circles back on the other wing of
his route.”
“Oh.” Gwynnor starred thoughtfully at the bobbing, swaying neck of his mount. “How’re you going
to get off Maeve?”
She shrugged. “Bribe my way onto a starship, I suppose.”
For several minutes they rode along in silence. Aleytys could feel the boy struggling to assimilate her
words.
He looked back at her, his dark-green eyes open wide, the pupils narrowed in the brilliant afternoon
light. “Then you’re going to the city.”
“I have to.” She caught the sharp scent of suspicion. “Gwynnor, look! If I told the Company men I
came here on a smuggler’s ship, I’d be sticking my head in a shark’s mouth. They’d have to sponge up
what was left of me. No, I won’t betray you. Couldn’t if I wanted to. What the hell do I know that I
could tell them?”
“About the place.” He jerked a head at the dark line that marked the position of the canyon.
“Dammit, Gwynnor, Captain Arel’s my friend. You think I want him killed?”
“Oh.”
Aleytys shifted again to relieve the ache in her thighs. “It’s been too long since I rode anything with
four legs. Why hate all starmen?”
His head swung around and he stared at her, startled. Then his young face pinched into an angry
scowl. “They come. Take. Take.” He ran his left hand over the top of his head repeatedly. ‘Take and
kill. Kill gentle people ...” His shoulders slumped suddenly as he retreated into unhappy memories.
“So you want to drive the Company out.”
“Yes.” She felt his helpless anger. For a minute, pity stirred in her, then she pushed it away. No, she
thought, not again. It’s none of my business.
They rode on in silence through air thin and chill enough to make her shiver and think about untying
the poncho from behind the saddle, but not chill enough to make the effort really worthwhile. The air
burned her lungs and leeched the moisture from lips and nose. As her tongue flicked around her mouth,
struggling to replace the moisture, she could feel hairline cracks opening in her lips. Overhead the sky
was a cold blue with ragged, wispy clouds scudding across the bowl while wind down lower drove the
coarse dust singing over the scarred stone. Behind her, the sun crept down in its western arc with a
foot-dragging lassitude that made her feel like clawing it to a more normal speed. Each time she glanced
back she had to search for the rusty disc, her body rhythms with their ingrained expectations sending her
eyes automatically to the wrong part of the sky. “Company men!” Gwynnor said suddenly. “Are you ...”
“Huh?”
“Are you part of a Company?”
“No. Where I was born no one had even heard of the Companies. Damn! That was a long way
back.” Rubbing her fingers lightly over the springy hair on the kaffa’s back, she stared over the bobbing
head at the desolate expanse of weathered stone. “A long way back ...”
“Why did you leave the place where you belonged?” Disapproval was sharp in his tenor voice.
“Belonged!” A bark of unhappy laughter was startled out of her. “They were going to burn me for a
witch.”
Her mount shied as a knobby little reptile fled in panic from under its feet. Almost immediately, a
dark shadow plummeted from the sky and sailed off with the reptile wriggling in its talons. Aleytys
frowned. She continued to watch a moment, then closed her eyes. The bird vanished from her senses,
not even the faint flutter of awareness that proximate life usually stirred along her nerve paths unless she
consciously blocked it out.
When she looked up again the black, triangular shape was soaring upward on a thermal, too high to
see if the whippy reptile still dangled from its beak. “Hey!” She pulled her eyes down. “Gwynnor!” He
was riding slumped over, deep in unhappy thoughts. “Gwynnor!”
He straightened his narrow shoulders and looked around. “Is there a bird up there, or am I
dreaming?”
His eyes rounded. “An eryr. Why?”
“When I close my eyes, he’s not there. Why can’t I sense him as well as see him?”
“You SEE?”
“If that’s what you call it.”
He fixed his eyes on the eryr as it sailed past the sun. “Prey animals on Maeve SEE. Most of them.
So do some of the cerdd. I ... I did once. No longer.” He slid rapidly over the words, then slowed as he
continued to explain. “Since they’d starve without it, some predators developed the ability to be invisible
to the SIGHT.” He swung bright, nervous eyes across the sky. “I was forgetting. There’s worse than the
eryr in these skies.”
“Worse.”
“Peithwyr.” He shuddered. “Six meters of leathery wing and teeth with a poison sting in the tail.” He
dug his heels into the kaffa’s side. With a snort of disgust the animal speeded up, the dip and sway of its
gait increasing alarmingly. “I forgot,” he threw back at her over his shoulder.
Aleytys goaded her own mount into faster movement and drew up alongside him. “I won’t be able to
sense it coming?”
“No.” He looked around warily. “No,” he repeated after a while. “If a peithwyr attacks, get off the
kaffa first. Get as far off as you can the first jump. If you’re lucky, it’ll start tearing up the kaffa and let
you get out of sight behind the first rock you can reach. Then you’ve got maybe a chance in fifty getting
away alive.”
“Why not shoot it? You’re armed.”
“Holy Maeve! No, Aleytys.” His face was a study in consternation. “A wounded peithwyr? It
wouldn’t stop till the ground itself was shredded. In small pieces.”
“Even if you killed it?”
“Peithwyrn are hard to kill. You’d have to be lucky. Make good an eye shot.” She could feel tension
mounting in him. “Where eryr are, the peithwyr haunts.”
Aleytys shuddered and shifted uneasily in the saddle. “I’ve been able to mind-control predators
before.”
“Don’t waste your time.”
The afternoon deepened slowly. Aleytys dropped into a tired, half-dozing state, lulled into
carelessness by the uneventful passage of hours. The flat stone surface stretched away to the horizon with
scraggly plants here and there that were a dusty gray-green, hard to separate from the stone. Occasional
reptiles scurried away from the feet of the kaffon but no eryr broke the sterile silence of the sky.
“Hit the ground!” Gwynnor’s shriek sent her tumbling off the kaffa, diving for a tumbled pile of rocks,
disregarding the frantic scrabble of the beast’s feet. A sudden foul stench wafted past on a surge of air
driven by great wings. Blackness flowed over her. The kaffa screamed, then silence filled with tearing
sounds. She scrambled away. A boulder. She slammed into it. Crawled around it. Peered cautiously
back.
The kaffa was down in a boneless heap, throat torn, blood gouting in a steamy diminishing arc.
Stench again. Something struck her shoulder, a numbing blow. Was gone. A scream. Cutoff.
Keeping low, moving with fear-born caution, she peered around the boulder briefly. The other kaffa
was down and spouting blood. The peithwyr beat its leathery wings with tremendous strokes, driving its
huge hollow-boned body into the air again. It circled over the butchered animals then came plummeting at
her, bloody talons reaching.
She scrambled backwards hastily, pulling at the hem of her tunic to get at her gun.
The peithwyr dropped like a bomb. Desperately, she drove her body away, still trying to get the gun
free. The peithwyr dropped, talons glittering in the russet light. Pain. Not her throat. Her shoulder. Pain. It
thrust her toward the comforting blackness pooling beneath the agony. Her shoulder was on fire. Fire
spread outward from the white-hot center where a pumping artery spurted away her strength. Scarcely
noticed, wings beat over her then veered off. As she faded, she heard a crunching of bones. The
peithwyr crouched dark and ominous, tearing at the kaffa. Her sight blurred. Blackness was warm, the
pain distant, a great grinding agony distant ... her life spurted away through the torn artery. Something
prodded at her.
Amber eyes opened inside her head. “Aleytys!” The contralto voice was familiar ... familiar ... she
didn’t want to know ...
Memory was a flood of agony She wanted to deny it but .she had no strength. “Harskari.” Aleytys’
lips moved with the name. “Why?” A cone of red licking out. Killing. Killing my love. Why?
Black eyes opened. “Freyka!”
Go away. I don’t want you. I won’t let you ... I won’t acknowledge you ... I won’t ...
Delicate chimes whispered around her head, delightful butterfly notes singing around the sounds from
the gorging peithwyr. The amber eyes altered. A thin, dark face framed in shimmering silver hair formed
around them. “Aleytys! Heal yourself. Now, girl. You can rest later.”
“No.” The word was harsh in her mind through her trembling lips moved with only a breath of sound.
She tried to reject the presence, feeling a pain that went far deeper than the simple physical hurt from her
mangled shoulder.
Violet eyes snapped with annoyance as a pointed elfin face materialized around them. Shadith’s
aureole of coppery curls quivered like tiny springs. “Move ass, Lee. You can wallow in self-pity when
you’ve got the leisure for it. Come on, let us help you. Lean on us. Reach out for your river. Come on,
dammit! Reach!”
Cool, ironic black eyes slanting down at the outer corners set in a rugged, intensely male face,
Swardheld grinned at her. “Glad to see you with us again, freyka. Now!” He narrowed his eyes, then
bellowed, “Move it, woman!”
Prodded by the phantom images in her head, Aleytys focused her mind on reaching for the black
river that fed her talents. And as she reached, she felt phantom arms cradling her body, lending her the
strength she lacked. She shuddered with that wrenching psychic pain inflicted by the memory of love and
death. Weakly, she tried to push the memory away, shutting out the three in her head along with it. For a
moment the hands supporting her faltered, seemed to retreat. No. The word roared at her. No. Don’t
shut us out. Not again.
The black water came pouring over her. She writhed and shrieked ... pain ... pain ... tearing at her ...
and worse ... tormenting itch as the torn flesh grew back. As blood cells doubled and redoubled. Then
the thunder of the water died to a whisper.
“Aleytys.” The quiet word vibrated through her head. “Remember Irsud. Remember that ill-fated
world. Remember Burash, your lover. Face your anguish. Don’t run away from it again. You’re a
woman, not a child.”
“No ...”
The peithwyr beat its way into the sky, sending great gouts of wind to batter her. Then it dropped
again, talons reaching for her, screaming, a battering of sound that shocked thought from her head.
The diadem chimed, and the air turned stiff. Aleytys shuddered as dead men’s faces came tumbling
back, triggered into consciousness by the sound. And Swardheld shoved her aside, knocking her loose
from her body, shouting, “Verdamn, freyka, move over!”
He flipped her body over the nearest boulder, diving with a smooth continuation of the movement to
end on his feet behind the plummeting bird. The diadem chimed again.
The peithwyr squalled with rage and muscled its great body around.
Swardheld cursed and jerked the tunic up, snatching the energy gun from the waistband of her
trousers. As the monster dived toward him, he cleared the sensor and sent the thin red beam searing first
into the chest region, then, with his usual calm accuracy, he sent the ruddy beam into the mad eyes of the
beast. Immediately, he leaped the body back, wheeled it, put six meters between body and dying bird,
dropped body behind one of the piled boulders and waited. The peithwyr tumbled out of control,
cracking the air with shrieks of pain and rage. Then it fell onto the rock and writhed, snapping
haphazardly, tearing at its own flesh. Grinning his triumph, Swardheld let go his hold on her body.
With the weakening cries behind her, Aleytys slid back into control and tried to get to her feet. Her
legs were so weak she fell, bruising her knees. She felt sick.
Shaking, she pulled herself onto the boulder, pushed her legs back against the stone and leaned
forward, resting her head on her hands, elbows pressed against her knees, breathing in great shuddering
gasps that wrenched her body. Gentle hands, immaterial hands, moved over her, comforting her.
Harskari materialized in her head. “Aleytys, look to the boy. He might be still alive.”
“Ahai Madar!” She pushed up on wobbly legs and stumbled across to the second kaffa.
The cerdd was crouched behind his mount, blood seeping sluggishly from the shredded flesh of his
back. He lay very still.
Grimacing with distaste, Aleytys knelt beside the pool of blood and touched him. Life beat faintly
under her fingers. Arching her body over the blood to keep the sticky mess off herself, she placed her
hands on the cerdd’s back and let the healing power flow.
After awhile, back aching from the unnatural position, she straightened. Gwynnor’s flesh was whole
again, the only sign of the savage wounds a faint pink tracery crossing the thick, grayish fuzz growing on
the pale skin of his body.
He blinked and sat up, looking at her, eyes staring wildly, he quickly focused on the gelatinous blood
pooled around him. He tugged at his tattered tunic and glanced briefly at the bloody rags that barely
covered her torso.
Uncomfortable in the silence, Aleytys said abruptly, “I heal.”
“So I see.” He chuckled, a sudden flash of humor born from his near-brush with death. “The
peithwyr?”
Aleytys jumped up and looked back across the stone. “Still dying.”
Holding onto her, Gwynnor pulled himself onto his feet and stared at the slowly writhing form of the
killer bird. “How?”
She touched her waist. “Energy gun.”
“Come on.” He scrambled over the corpse of the kaffa and began tearing at the saddle bags.
“What’s the hurry?”
“Its mate. We might not be lucky a second time.” He pulled the knots loose and swung the waterskin
over his shoulder, the bags over another. Aleytys hurried to follow his example.
As they moved along a path, clinging to the side of a ravine that opened out a few meters from the
battered corpses of the kaffon and the still struggling peithwyr, Aleytys glanced nervously at the sky.
“You think the peithwyr won’t see us down here?”
Gwynnor shrugged, then edged around a curve, pressing his body tight against the side wall. His
voice came back to her. “Be careful. The stone is crumbling badly here.”
After they negotiated the dangerous area, Gwynnor said suddenly, “Their wing spread’s too great.
We should be safe as long as this keeps going in the right direction.” Then he added, “I think.”
She looked back at the sun, still stubbornly high above the western horizon, fully visible even from the
depths of the ravine. “How long till sunset?”
“Four, five more hours. Why?”
“I’m about out of push. My home world has a shorter day. And the standard one I’ve got used to
since is shorter than that.”
“Oh.”
A shattering scream battered at them. The peithwyr’s mate, wings folded back, plunged at them in a
steep suicidal dive.
“Swardheld.” Aleytys surrendered her body, scarcely waiting to be sure he heard. Black eyes
blazing, he took her body, snatched the gun from her trouser belt. An eye shot. Then he scrambled back
摘要：

MaeveDiadem,Book4JoClayton1979 v1.Scanned6Dec02.Spell-checked. ISBN  0-87997-760-4  “Aleytysisaheroineastoughas,andmorebelievableandengagingthan,thegeneralrunofswords-and-sorcerybarbarians.”—PublishersWeekly Aleytys,wandereroftheskies,seekerofthehomeplanetofhermother’ssuper-race,wearer-slaveofthemin...

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