‘Straighten those fingers!’ Dresh barked. ‘So!’
One moment her hand nestled in his soft hair. The next it was encased in a grip of ice. Cold emanated from the top of his skull, to creep up inside her arm. A sluggishly moving icy jelly was being forced up through her bones. Her fingers went numb. The feeling in her arm was lost to her. Elbow and shoulder, gone. A web of icy tendrils crept like a living mantle across her shoulders, ventured up her raised right arm. Fear hammered inside her, and she decided to pull free, to escape this loathsome inner touching. But it was as if she heard of someone else’s fear and desire to flee. Her body did not move. The terror raced hopelessly around within her own mind. She was Dresh’s tool, her own will impotent. Cold slugs inched into the bones of her right hand, filled her fingers. She felt the fingers straighten into the correct alignment. Surely her tendons must tear themselves loose from the bones they gripped, but now, they relaxed, and seemed to recall an earlier limberness that Ki had never possessed. The sign was made.
A needle of hot acid ripped up from Dresh’s skull. It shrieked through Ki’s body, traveling swiftly through her marrow. It tore across her shoulders and shot up her reaching arm in a spasm of agony beyond words or cries. She made no sound. Her mouth stretched wide and tortured, but was mute to her body’s torment. The pain exploded from her reaching fingertips, to spray out in a four-fingered jet of agony across the night sky. Ki saw no sight, she heard no sound, but she sensed the signal sent through her. In some far realm there was a being that would answer such a call. Ki pictured a vulture suddenly looping and settling.
‘Rest now.’ She knew it was Dresh, but could not tell if he spoke to her as if she simply heard him. A haze of pain and confusion scattered her thoughts. A strength not her own entered her body. She staggered forward three short steps. Then it forsook her, to let her tumble onto her bedding like a marionette whose strings are cut. Somewhere in Ki, someone was angry, was furious with Dresh. Someone would kill him, as soon as she could find her strength. But Ki was too weary to listen to her rant. She closed her eyes and sank into depths past sleep.
Grielea paused on the threshold. Her black eyes narrowed as she measured the figure within the barren room, sensing the tension hidden beneath the graceful folds of the robe draping the womanly form. Guilt and secrets burdened her like snow on a tender sapling. A lesser creature would snap. But not Rebeke. Not she. Grielea backed up a silent step. She lowered her eyes to the floor and hissed respectfully.
Slowly Rebeke’s eyes floated up from the pale blue pyramid in her lap. She sighed as she set it on a small cushion that rested on the floor beside her.
‘What is it, apprentice?’ Her voice was brisk, but she could not conceal all the weariness in it, nor the undercurrents of anxiety.
‘Windmistress Medie has arrived. She awaits your permission to enter.’
‘Show her in immediately, child. She should never have been kept waiting.’
Grielea bobbed a nod and vanished from the door. Rebeke arose, nervously smoothing her long robes. She gave to the soft azure drapings an icy dignity. The small feminine face that peered from the centre of the high cowl was betrayed by the hooded brow that rose another two handspans above her eyes. But for the shrouded high skull, her figure was still remarkably Human. Her body, it seemed, remembered that earliest allegiance.
‘Enter, Windmistress, if it please you.’ Grielea’s voice was carefully neutral, her eyes cast down before this impressive being. Medie entered, darting her eyes in surprise around the bare room. Her cobalt robes swept the bare stone floor. Grielea remained in her servile posture in the door, but her sharp black eyes darted after the tall Windmistress and registered the hesitation in her stride.
‘Welcome, Windmistress Medie.’ Rebeke chose the formal greeting. ‘A blessed wind has brought you.’
‘It is ever a blessed wind that brings me to your presence.’ Medie gave the stylized reply.
Rebeke’s eyes flicked at Grielea. ‘Grielea, you may go. I would have you and Liset replace the watchers at the vigil; tell the two before you that they take their rest now. On your way, remind those at the watching pools to be vigilant. This is no ordinary being they watch for.’
‘Yes, Windmistress. So shall I do.’
Grielea slipped away. Now Rebeke had no choice but to turn her eyes on her visitor. Medie was tall, much of it cowl. The darker edges of her scales mottled her thin brown features. The deeper blue of her robes announced her higher status. Rebeke’s hands fluttered nervously. Taking refuge in ceremony, she advanced to give Medie the ritual kiss and words of welcoming.
‘May the winds come ever willing to your call, and the airs kiss you with the same affection I do now.’
Medie returned the kiss perfunctorily. Rebeke retreated a step, uncertain. Medie ignored her as she turned slowly about, studying the austere room. Her eyes played over the stark black walls, the cold stone floor, then returned to seize Rebeke in their cold grip. She stretched her lightly scaled lips into a thin line. She made no pretense at ceremony or courtesy.
‘You have known for at least three days that Dresh was no longer in his residence at Dyal.’ Medie spoke without preamble. ‘Yet you forebore to act until the last possible moment. You summon me at the last, as an afterthought. If you had been successful at gathering the entire wizard, I wonder if you would have summoned me at all. You have stepped far beyond the bounds of your responsibility for watching him, Rebeke. And you have been clumsy about it. You know already what the High Council will say. That they expected such of you all along; that you have never given us your full loyalty, but continue to be swayed by unfitting emotions from an unguided childhood. Rarely do the Windsingers admit a child past her fifteenth year. Yet you we took in. Now it seems you have failed us. Is this our repayment? Why did you do this? Do you seek the attentions of the High Council?’
Rebeke turned a shade paler beneath her scales. Her blue and white eyes darted nervously about her chamber, but found nothing to rest on. She advanced a step toward Medie, then reconsidered it and stepped back.
‘I do not seek the attentions of the High Council, Medie. Too long has the High Council overlooked what I have done, and spoken only of what I have yet to do.’ Rebeke’s voice grew bolder as she spoke. ‘I am aware of what they say of me. I know they prefer their temple bred ones to me. They think I am weak and uncertain, not to be trusted. Why else choose me, of all Windsingers, to be put as a guard to Dresh? They hope to nod as I betray my training. Yes, I have been slow in my efforts, and that may appear as clumsiness. It is, in truth, a respect for the power that is Dresh; and a knowledge of how his mind works. I have not been totally successful, I will admit. But even had I succeeded in gathering all his parts in one swoop, I still would have summoned you to share him with me. For have I not seen you, Medie, passed over for powers and honors, seen them bestowed instead on Windsingers younger and more tractable than you? Why is this so, Medie? Unless they fear us; unless the High Council dares not pass power to us for fear we shall wield it too well?’
Rebeke paused and licked her dry lips. Her scaled lips needed no wetting; it was a Human reflex she had not yet lost. Medie had not spoken; but she had given no sign of shock at the traitorous words either. Perhaps she listened with sympathy in her heart, or perhaps she waited for Rebeke to betray herself further. No matter. This was no time for caution. If Medie would not make this move with Rebeke, then Rebeke would make it alone. Power was within her grasp. She held the hands and body of the wizard, even if the head was lacking. If only she had sent a wiser being to collect them for her; but who was there of intellect that she could trust? So she had sent the foolish winged beast to bring back the boxes, knowing he would forget the errand as soon as it was finished. So she did not have the head. She had the hands and body. Great power could be distilled from them, by one who knew the ways. And greater still was to be had if the head could be claimed as well. Medie could help her win the head. But if she