People of the River(55)

"If you're going to push," Vole replied with hushed violence, "then the answer is no!"

"Please." Wanderer stepped to the door-hanging and pulled it aside. "Come outside with me so we can talk about this more thoroughly."

"I've already told you my decision, Wanderer."

His gaze rested on Lichen again. She lay absolutely still. His wrinkled face softened, and in the depths of his eyes, worry flickered, as if he saw something so terrible in her future that he almost couldn't bear it.

"Vole," he whispered, "don't I even have the right to teach her how to be happy? You know she'll be miserable if she can't control the Dreams. Soon they'll begin stalking her." At the hard look on her mother's face, Wanderer said, "Please, Vole. You've denied me every other right. Just let me—"

"She's my daughter, Wanderer. You have no rights regarding her." She folded her arms and turned away. "Please go."

Wanderer closed his eyes wearily for a moment before ducking beneath the hanging and disappearing into the night. Lichen listened to his footsteps fade away, and her stomach clutched. She waited until her mother turned to pick up the plate of cakes before she slipped completely under her buffalo robe to cry.



Silence enveloped the Sun Chamber.

As Tharon wove between the firebowls, the whorls of shell on his golden robe glittered with a torrid light. Too quiet! He could hear the individual breathing of each person who slept in the temple. It haunted him, hissing at him like the viperous warning of a hundred menacing serpents.

Yes, they're sleeping while you're up walking the floor. What sort of servants are these Starborn? Negligent. They're no better than the last batch. Well . . . perhaps I'll have to find new priests and priestesses sooner than I'd thought.

Tharon peevishly wandered the sacred room, pounding his handspike into anything that happened to come within reach: the sacred pedestal, the altar, the seashells on the walls. Already a line of crushed shell glittered along the floor. This handspike was his favorite. Over four hands long, the head arched like a spreading morning-glory blossom, while the edges scalloped the stone to a fme and lethal point.

Tharon took a long drink of galena tea and smacked his lips in satisfaction. When crushed and mixed with the seeds of morning glory, galena had a potent metallic flavor that the Starborn proclaimed a remedy for almost everything . . . though few could afford it. And Tharon had not been feeling well lately. Bouts of weakness and severe headaches would come upon him out of nowhere and with such ferocity that he would start to tear his black hair out in handfuls.

Even now as he gazed around the room, the glow of the firebowls hurt his eyes. The painted figures on the walls seemed to grin malignantly at him, and the wooden faces of the carved effigies mocked him. Daggers of pain shot through his head whenever he looked directly at the flames.

"Stop it!" he shouted at the firebowls. "I hate you! People are always feeding you oil and watching over you like their lives depended on you—while I'm left to wander the temple in pain!"

He glared at them.

"Such superstition. Firebowls and Father Sun's wrath. Ridiculous." Leaning forward to emphasize his words, he said, "Don't you think I know Father Sun's mind? Why, I'm his own son! Bom when a shaft of his light penetrated my mother's womb."

Tharon haughtily traipsed down the seventh line of firebowls, the line that aimed at the door, dribbling spittle into each as he passed. The flames sizzled and popped; the light wavered so violently that it threw his shadow in multiple images across the walls.

He laughed as he whirled to stir the images. The sight pleased him. Why, it gave him a ghostly army at his beck and call! He needed one these days, when everyone had fallen to plotting against him.

Everyone except Badgertail. The burly warrior obeyed Tharon's slightest whim. Down to bringing him Jenos' bloody head. Fool. Did he think such subservience gleaned Tharon's respect? Ha!

"But it does keep Badgertail alive," Tharon mused. "Yes. Perhaps he's more canny than one realizes."

The queasy sensation possessed Tharon for the third time that morning. Angrily, he bent forward to clutch his stomach. "Well, if Badgertail's so canny, perhaps one should keep a better eye on him. No telling when he'll decide he can start making decisions for himself."

Tharon tilted his head speculatively. "You don't think he's doing that, do you? I mean, right now? He could be. Why, of course he could. He's a warrior. They're always scheming, the bloodthirsty brutes."

Slyly, Tharon tipped his chin to examine the Power Bundles and sacred headdresses and necklaces that huddled together on the west side of the room. "What do you think? You're supposed to know things like this. Is Badgertail conspiring behind my back?"