Ambrov Keon Read online

  Closing her eyes plunged her back into the river, as if she must now experience at an accelerated rate everything that had happened while she was unconscious. When she forced her eyes open, she seemed to be suspended over an abyss, looking down into treetops and blue sky. Helplessly, she clutched at the muddy grass as the world changed colors and began to spin. Nausea shook her.

  It went on and on. Darkness brought the storm back—or was it another sensory distortion? Rain pelted her. She tried to curl up to escape as it burned her with boiling drops, stung her with ice. The world spun again.

  Finally the worst was over. It was dark and pouring down rain, but the wind had lessened to ordinary force. If she could trust her time sense, it was just after midnight.

  She knew where she was now: in Gulf Territory. At least the river had not flung her up among her enemies. If she walked east, she would come to the Old River Road—and along the road she would find people. Where was the nearest Pen? Vizber? Mefis? As she tried to determine where she was in relation to the towns, distortions returned. She was not recovered; could not recover completely until she replenished her selyn reserves.

  The moment she admitted her Need, it became all-consuming. The battle with the river, followed by disorientation, had reduced her life energy to a degree she had not experienced since First Need at changeover.

  By the time she found a Gen she would be in deeper Need than she had ever known in her short life as a Sime. If she did not get a Gen soon...she could die!

  The longer she lay there, the deeper her Need grew. Despite dizziness and a stabbing pain behind her eyes, Risa struggled to her feet. Turning her back to the river, she forced one foot in front of the other, stumbling eastward, fighting her way through soggy underbrush and storm debris.

  Need tore at her vitals. Cramps spread from the middle of her chest down her arms to convulse the small lateral tentacles, organs designed to draw selyn from a Gen’s system into hers. At their roots, ronaplin glands swelled painfully with selyn-conducting fluid—the delicate organs pushed out of their sheaths, seeking, finding nothing, the rain washing away the ronaplin as fast as it bathed them.

  Need was always unpleasant. If a Gen were not immediately available it could be frightening—but Risa had never known it to be so painful.

  The rain-soaked sleeves of her loose shirt sogged against the sensitive organs, making her shudder, yet she was too cold to take the shirt off. She longed for her winter fur-lined cape. Her handling tentacles began to ache from holding the sleeves away from her laterals.

  Everything ached. Her feet hurt. Her head throbbed. Need pulled at her. She yearned to stop fighting and let it claim her. If only it didn’t hurt so much!

  She couldn’t give up. People were depending on her. She could feel them waiting for her, leaning on her strength. She saw them watching her with total trust—

  Hallucinations!

  The strange faces looming out of the rain dissolved into Kreg’s face. Yes. Her brother was waiting for her. With Dad gone, he had no one else. She had to get home to him. She had to live. Where was that road?

  By this time she was promising herself, One more step and you can rest. Get to the next tree. Now another step—

  Out of the bleak night, the nager of a high-field Gen impinged on her consciousness.

  Another hallucination?

  Risa halted her stumbling progress, her laterals stretching in the direction of life promise. A vibrating throb of Need, she moved with Sime-swift deliberateness toward the source of fulfillment.

  It grew stronger as she drew closer. She operated with only her Sime senses now—hyperconscious—and as she broke out into a rutted wagon track she suddenly knew precisely where she was. Her father had brought her to this back road years ago, before they knew whether she would be Sime or Gen. Last year he had taken Kreg on this same journey.

  No—she could not identify the fleeing Gen ahead with Kreg. She must have that Gen’s life force to live!

  Suddenly the selyn source blinked out, as if it had never been. Risa stopped in her tracks. Had she imagined—?

  The shrine! That was why they had come here, years ago. Just off this little-used road was a Shrine of the Starred-cross, a shelter for newly established Gens fleeing to the safety of Gen Territory.

  The shrine was carved into living rock, insulating selyn fields. The occupant would not attract passing Simes, and could rest in as much safety as was possible for a Gen until he reached the other side of the border.

  The selyn field Risa had been following was suddenly there again, beckoning her with rich promise. Thought was impossible. She was a predator with her prey in reach.

  Swiftly and silently, she moved toward the shrine—and she did not panic when the field disappeared again.

  * * * * * * *

  SERGI AMBROV KEON WAS TIRED—not the healthy tiredness of a long day’s effort, but the bone-deep fatigue of despair. He had failed in the worst possible way a Companion could. A channel in his care had died.

  Mechanically, he lit the fire laid ready inside the shrine, and put water on for tea. He didn’t unpack the food in his saddlebag; hunger was the farthest thing from his mind. He was cold, not just from the chill winds still chasing the storm, but from his own depression.

  Over and over, the last few moments of the life of Erland ambrov Carre played in his mind. Sergi had been escorting Erland from Carre to Keon—the new channel Keon was so desperate for. When the storm had struck, they’d taken shelter in a cotton barn, hunching down in the center aisle between the bales—surely the safest place they could have found.

  When the wind whipped boards off the building and flung icy rain in on them, Sergi pushed the Sime to the floor and crouched beside him, sheltering his arms from flying debris. They both knew by then that they were caught in a hurricane; there was nothing to do but hope the barn would hold through the storm.

  It didn’t. With a wrenching crack, the roof gave, some shakes flying, others tumbling in on them. The horses screamed and reared. Erland leaped to grasp the reins. Sergi was trying to stop the foolish Sime from exposing his vulnerable forearms when something caught him on the back of the head, dropping him to his knees.

  He didn’t quite black out, but his senses swam. He was aware of Erland easing him to the floor, the feel of hot, moist lateral tentacles over the throbbing point of impact, and the pain subsiding. But the channel was kneeling over him, when he should be protecting the channel.

  In the wind and thunder, the mightiest shout could not be heard. He struggled to his knees, grasping Erland’s flying cape to wrap the channel in it. The wind tore it from his hands as more debris fell—sticks and pebbles that cut and stung, and grit that made their eyes smart.

  Sergi groped for Erland’s arms, hoping the Sime had retracted his tentacles before that cloud of dust hit them—grit up the tentacle sheaths could put a channel out of commission for days.

  But the Sime had moved beyond his reach. Shielding his eyes with his hands, Sergi peered through the blur, finding Erland hunched over, arms tight against his chest.

  It was far worse than grit. Erland was bleeding—bleeding from a slashed lateral.

  It was only then that Sergi felt his own cuts—there was glass from a shattered barn window in that flying debris. Both men were bleeding—but only Erland fatally.

  Sergi tried to force away the memory of the channel’s death. He had eased the pain, and the boy had died in minutes. That was the single blessing: the wound was so severe that he died quickly, instead of lingering for days in the agony of attrition.

  Sergi had known Erland only for a few days. Now he had the task of returning to Carre to give the news of his death to those who had loved him all his life. As if that was not enough, he must then go home to Keon without a channel, their hope of surviving for another year.

  He stared morosely into the fire, seeing everything Keon had struggled for go up in smoke—through his failure.

  Need hit him.

 
; As powerful as Erland’s death agony, the sensation aroused Sergi instantly into his Companion’s mode. Perhaps it was guilt that made him think he had never responded to such depth of Need before, but he knew at once that it was a physical reaction, not an emotional one.

  A Sime had entered the shrine—another weary traveler taking shelter from the storm, but this one seeking more than a warm, dry place to spend the night. Sergi’s overwhelming response meant that the newcomer was beyond thought, beyond stopping—a killer Sime stalking its prey, needing Sergi’s life force to live!

  * * * * * * *

  THE HIGH FIELD OF THE GEN IN THE SHRINE WASHED OVER RISA, easing her Need with promise. There was no fear—it must not know that she was there.

  Basking in its field, she became duoconscious—both her Sime senses and her other senses operating at once. She could see it silhouetted against the fire. Too large for a recently established adolescent. A full-grown male Gen.

  What was he doing here? Blown into Sime Territory by the storm? It didn’t matter; he was life to her. The moment he knew she was there, that tempting field would erupt with the fear she needed as much as his selyn. She would drain him, charging her aching nerves—surely that incredible field promised that for once she would be fully satisfied—

  She took a step forward, just as the Gen said, “Why don’t you come over to the fire and get warm?”

  It was Risa who flared fear. Then she wondered what kind of fool believed only a Gen could enter the shrine.

  The Gen leaned forward to poke up the fire, then stood—and she saw that he was huge. Gens were usually bigger than Simes, but this was the biggest one she’d ever seen—the absurd thought crossed her mind that his size meant he stored more selyn, although she knew the two things were unrelated.

  He was turning toward her now. She moved forward, waiting for him to recognize a Sime in Need, yearning for the fear that would charge his field for her kill. Her laterals dripped ronaplin in expectation. She moved forward step by step, savoring his field, waiting for the moment of recognition, of terror—the peak bliss of the Kill!

  CHAPTER TWO

  SERGI WATCHED THE SIME APPROACH—a girl, covered with mud and wrung out with Need. She couldn’t be more than a month or two past changeover. Although he knew she intended to kill him, his heart went out to her. He held out his hands, knowing that in her state she could not resist his field. “Come here,” he said gently. “I will serve your Need.”

  To his astonishment, she stopped, actually looking at him. She expected fear, of course—any Gen but a Companion would have been terrified, seeing certain death approach.

  But Sergi had no fear to give her. Instead, she woke in him an expectation of pleasure. His mind told him this little junct had nothing for him but the chance to ease his guilt by doing a kindness—but his body responded as if to a channel, more powerful than any he had ever served.

  She was still staring at him, zlinning him—Needing him. Unable to leave that Need unfilled, he took a step toward her.

  She darted back a step, stumbled, and almost fell.

  No Sime was clumsy. She was hurt! As Sergi drew closer he saw blood mixed with the mud on her bare neck. “Poor child,” he murmured. “Let me help you.”

  The Sime staggered, but kept her feet and remained just out of his reach. “I’m going to kill you!” she spat, a kitten hissing at a hound.

  When her threat failed to raise fear in him, she crouched, ready to spring. But instead of leaping, she shuddered, and suddenly clutched her arms to her chest.

  Sergi’s ache to serve her Need surged—and he realized she was voiding selyn! It was attrition—if he did not give her transfer at once she could be dead in minutes.

  No—no, not twice in one day!

  Sergi caught her as her knees gave way, kneeling himself.

  Rest on my field, he thought as Nedd had trained him, knowing his feeling communicated through his nager—the aura of life-energy that every Sime could read.

  The girl struggled feebly as he held her—where did she get such strength of will?—but he balanced her against his right arm, offering her his left, sliding his hand under hers.

  Her handling tentacles wrapped about his forearm like tiny ropes of steel. When the hot, moist laterals touched him, her resistance crumbled. She was already reaching for his right arm when he ceased supporting her back with it.

  They knelt, face to face. Sergi bent his head, touched the girl’s lips with his—and the flow began. She drew voraciously, setting every nerve in Sergi’s body to singing. To give transfer was a Companion’s greatest pleasure, but no channel—not even Nedd—had ever touched him so deeply.

  He felt the ebb and surge as her secondary system came into play. She had no control, no smoothness, no care for him—yet she gave him satisfaction he had never known before.

  But the girl was unsatisfied. Brimming with selyn, still she demanded of him, their systems clashing—

  She was trying to hurt him. She needed pain, fear—a junct’s Need. He could not give her killbliss!

  No, he thought, you don’t need to kill! Feel the pure pleasure without pain!

  They were perfectly matched in nageric strength, but Sergi had years of training and experience. He brought the transfer gently to its termination and sank back on his heels. The girl stared at him from immense dark eyes, incredulous. He smiled, touched by her innocence.

  Her eyes traveled over him as he knelt patiently, knowing that immediately after transfer a Sime drank in the world through the senses denied in the days of increasing Need. Sergi could smell the dampness of the girl’s hair and clothing, feel the chill air coming off the stone walls. He wanted to pick her up, towel her off, and wrap her in blankets—but she was a wild thing, ready to flee into the night at the wrong move. He held still, waiting.

  * * * * * * *

  RISA HAD NEVER BEEN SO SATISFIED IN HER LIFE. Her whole body tingled with well-being...and yet she had not killed.

  As her senses readjusted, she saw all that the firelight could reveal of the huge Gen, so vitally, impossibly alive.

  She had seen art works of precious metal, bronze statuettes of shadow-dark beauty edged by bright highlights where handling had rubbed away the patina. So the Gen before her showed bright highlights on hair and skin, though most of his huge bulk remained in shadow. If her hands did not still rest on the living, yielding flesh of his arms, she might have thought him turned to bronze, so still he knelt, waiting.

  What did he expect now? His hands remained a steady support beneath her forearms. Belatedly, she withdrew her handling tentacles, but still he did not move.

  What kind of Gen—?

  Wer-Gen, stirred in the back of her mind. She had heard as a child the legends of magicians who turned Simes into Gens—fearless Gens who thus produced selyn but in turn became masters over Simes, Gens who had the power to kill—

  She blinked the superstitious nonsense away, and found her voice. “Who are you?”

  “I am Sergi ambrov Keon,” he replied in a soothing tone. The peculiar name told her what he was: a Companion, a Gen raised in a Householding. It was true, then. They could give their selyn and not die. “Let me help you,” he said.

  “I don’t require any help,” Risa replied, suddenly very conscious of his support. She tried to spring to her feet, but the world tilted, and she tottered like a child.

  The Gen caught her, lifting her small weight with ease. “You’re exhausted,” he said. “You were disoriented.”

  Her response was to zlin him. His nager amazed her. She had never known anything like the warmth and concern flowing over her. “How did you know?” she asked warily.

  “Juncts don’t allow themselves to get that deep into Need, and...there’s no use trying to explain to a Sime. Here—” He set her down on the bench before the fire and touched the side of her head so gently that she felt no pain. “—you’ve had a severe blow. If you were just unconscious, how did you use up so much selyn? You must have f
allen into the river. Not magic,” he added at her start. “Mud!”

  Risa was covered in it, dry and cracking on the outside of her clothing, soggy and gritty on the inside. She felt filthy and uncomfortable, but there was no running water in the shrine, and she had lost all her clean clothes.

  Sergi suggested, “It’s still pouring rain outside, but it’s getting warmer. Have some hot tea first, and then wash that mud off. If you sleep in that condition you’ll feel miserable in the morning.”

  Perhaps it was his self-assurance that made her obey him. She stripped, washed herself in the rain, her clothes in the torrent from the shrine’s downspout. That flow was heavy enough to penetrate to the roots of her hair. She unbraided it with difficulty, and gratefully spread it with fingers and tentacles to wash out the mud.

  The Gen took her clothes inside, draping them with his over the bench before the fire. When Risa came in, he was ready with a cape to wrap her in. “Are you allergic to wool?” he asked before draping it over her shoulders.

  “Allergic? Of course not.” She pulled the garment about herself gratefully, for it was much cooler inside the stone shrine than outside. The Gen’s cape would have easily wrapped three times around Risa. It fell to her knees, although it was probably waist-length on him.

  As the garment absorbed the moisture from her body, Risa realized that it was not the Gen’s traveling cape. That lay spread across the bench, steaming slightly. This cape and the dry shirt and trousers he wore had come from his saddlebags.

  As she approached the fire, Risa smelled cereal cooking, and realized that she was hungry. The Gen was trimming the wick of an oil lamp with a sharp knife. Risa shuddered at the sight of such an instrument in Gen hands.

  In the bright light, Risa’s cape glowed red. She noticed embroidery down the front. It formed a chain—a chain of white links down the red wool.