He looked at me then, his eyes slightly bloodshot. He seemed surprised to see me, but not, curiously enough, angry. “My brother's out,” he said. His voice was a little slurred, perhaps from the medication.
I didn't know what to say. I said the first thing to pop into my head, rarely a good idea. “This place is a sty.”
He didn't appear offended. “Are you going to nag?” Not a warning. It sounded more like idle curiosity.
“Just making an observation.”
“What did he do to me?”
Following sudden changes in conversation was not my forte. “Who?”
“Your Source.”
Ah.
“He gave you some wine.”
“He did more than that.” His head fell back on the pillow. “I hope I don't have to thank him.”
My eyebrows rose at that. “Why not?”
“I hate Sources.”
My eyebrows couldn't go any higher, so there was no way I could express the increase in my surprise. “You hate Sources?” I'd never heard of such a thing. Why would anyone hate Sources?
“My brother's Source is an ass.”
“Your brother's Source.” His brother was a Shield? And lived with him?
“Not this brother.” The dancer waved a languid hand about the room. “The other one.”
“Ah.” I didn't think this conversation could get any less intelligent and still contain words.
“Are you lovers?”
“What?”
“You and your Source.”
Huh. Blunt.
Really, how could anyone look at Karish and then look at me and think we could possibly be lovers? “Of course not.” I settled down on the other bed. “That sort of thing is disapproved of in the Triple S.” It threw a highly unstable emotional ingredient into an already potentially dangerous mix.
“You'd never know it.”
“Your brother sleeps with his Source?”
The dancer looked appalled. “Of course not!”
Interesting. Very. There was a story there, but it clearly wasn't my place to ask. “How's your knee?” There, that didn't sound nearly as apprehensive as I actually felt.
“Shattered,” he answered grimly. “The healers say I may walk in time, but I'll always have a limp, and I'll never dance again.”
I wanted to look down at my hands, to hide in some way. Instead I stared at him and waited for his anger to come, as it had to. It didn't matter that such was the way of the sport. Everyone knew the risks, but they never expected to suffer from them. If they did, no one would ever dance.
But no words of recrimination came from him. The silence stretched out, and I had to say something to fill it. “How badly will this affect your livelihood?”
“Pretty thoroughly. I'mâI
was
âprofessional.”
I had to look down then. Hell. I knew it. I'd just destroyed this man's life for the sake of a damned hobby. My stomach churned with disgust. What a pathetic waste. What was I going to do? How could I ever compensate him for something like this? “Healers don't know everything,” I said feebly.
“They know a hell of a lot more than I do.”
“They get things wrong all the time. The stupidest mistakes. My cousin was pregnant, but the local quack thought she just had indigestion until she actually gave birth.” So my mother had written to me once.
“I will not dance again,” he said firmly. “And I don't blame you.”
That was just not natural. “I rather wish you would.”
“I'm afraid I can't help you there.”
“I can handle being yelled at. Especially when it's for a legitimate reason.”
“There is no legitimate reason,” he said. “I'm angry, but at myself. It was my foul, not yours.” He shrugged. “It's the way of the dance.”
He wasn't supposed to make me feel better. I was supposed to grovel before him and take his verbal abuse. Though I really wasn't very good at either. “You are being freakishly reasonable,” I told him.
He smiled then, the same charming smile he'd used on me the first day of the Star Festival, and I felt
really
awful then. “I like being unpredictable,” he admitted. “It keeps the ladies guessing.”
“That's a motive I can appreciate.”
“Are you sure that Source isn't your lover?”
What was his obsession with Karish? “Uh, I think I would have noticed.”
He held out his hand. “Aiden Kelly.”
I shook it. “Dunleavy Mallorough.”
Chapter Seven
Because of the increasing frequency of the natural events assaulting High Scape, the Triple S had deemed it necessary to build a small one-room structure on the outskirts of the Upper Eastern Quad, where the Pair standing watch were to . . . well, concentrate on High Scape, I supposed. A bizarre requirement of the position, but its purpose was to prevent the Pair from being so distracted by the wonders of the city that they failed to notice an approaching disaster.
I didn't know how any Source could fail to notice an oncoming event. Certainly, some were quicker at it than others, but no Source let an event become apparent to a regular without channeling it. And I couldn't imagine any kind of distraction that would prevent a Source from feeling the event coming.
The official name for the building was the observation post. McKenna had dubbed it the paranoia stall, which was then shortened to the Stall. It had been designed to keep the Pair suitably bored. A stove, a table with two chairs, no windows. I had the feeling all the books, games, and decks of cards were contraband.
And so, three out of every four days, for seven hours a day, Karish and I sat in the Stall and warded off events. Every shift there were at least two, possibly three events to channel, and while at first I found myself exhausted by the end of a shift, I quickly built up my stamina. It soon got to the point where we could carry on a conversation while we channeled. If we wanted to.
We usually didn't. Not out of any ill feeling. We simply had little to discuss. Karish and I had nothing in common. Really. He liked to play cards and considered drinking alcohol a form of recreation. He loved to watch the races, both horse and dog, and the results were the only part of the news circulars he cared to read. I, on the other hand, read history and poetry, preferred bench dancing over any sport, and couldn't think of anything to say that might be of interest to an aristocrat.
I started bringing Triple S records, stored at the residence, to read while waiting for Karish to channel. I had hoped to find some explanation for the increase in the frequency of events. I was bound for disappointment. The reports were full of speculation, some accusations, some counterarguments, but nothing that could explain anything about what was happening in High Scape, because no one really knew.
All of the Sources had made recent reports claiming the disturbances had been unusual in their execution, but they couldn't really say how. It was just a feeling. One Source claimed to feel some kind of intent in the forces, as though there were a mind directing them. That perception was firmly denied by every other Source. With good reason, I thought. The idea was ridiculous.
During my free time, I explored the city. A task, I thought, that could take the rest of my life. Every new street was another little adventure. Though getting lost, as I frequently did, was frightening, I never suffered for it.
I visited Aiden. A lot. At first, yes, it was primarily an issue of guilt, a sense of duty and responsibility. It quickly became something more. I liked him. It took a big man not to resent the person who did him such an injury, with such far-reaching and permanent results. He had a quick wit I enjoyed. He had traveled a great deal, in his pursuit of dancing purses, and he told excellent stories.
He was not a member of the Triple S. The first regular I had ever known who wasn't family.
And he was my excuse whenever Karish asked me out for a drink after our watch. I spent enough time with Karish. We worked together and lived in the same building. I didn't think it was healthy for partners to spend too much time together. They might start to lose sight of their professional relationship and become overly irritated with each other.
Besides, I heard what Karish got up to in his free time. Drunken debaucheries, for the most part. That wasn't my idea of fun, and I was rather disappointed that he indulged in that sort of thing. However, as he never once appeared for a watch at anything less than his best, it was none of my business, and I didn't speak of it.
Karish didn't like Aiden. I wasn't sure why. True, Aiden had been snarky to him during their brief meeting at the Star Festival, but then Karish hadn't hesitated to help Aiden when he was hurt. I had thought the tension had been forgotten. Yet Karish sneered every time I mentioned Aiden's name.
So I think I could be forgiven when, after declining to join Karish for a drink so I could instead visit with Aiden, I suspected some childish motivation when I felt Karish's inner shields drop in the middle of said visit.
He was channeling. Halfway through a comment to Aiden, I closed my eyes, picturing Karish in my head. This was why I had spent all that time staring at him.
Really.
There was a Pair on duty. There was no reason for him to be doing this.
He was channeling. For the moment it didn't matter why. I would Shield. I would yell at him about it later.
It was more difficult than I'd expected, though. We had slid easily into a pattern of channeling and Shielding during our time in High Scape, and I had felt confident that I knew what to expect. But there was something strange about the power Karish was channeling.
For one thing, I seemed to feel it myself. I didn't simply observe it through him. I could feel it. Me.
For another, it felt . . . sharp. Like it was scraping over me, the teeth of a bread knife not quite weighted enough to hurt. That wasn't normal.
I gasped as a small, sharp pain pierced the back of my left eye. It lodged itself in firmly, grew roots, and expanded. Jagged agony crawling across my brain, cutting in, pushing out, until it threatened to crack my skull open from the inside.
I opened my eyes and found myself staring at my own Shields. Never before had they appeared to me as an image. Thick walls made of solid black bricks. The bricks wanted to slip apart, I could see them shivering in their places, but I held them up with my hands and my mind. That was causing the pain. If I released the bricks, the pain would stop.
Where had the wind come from? Ragged, slicing wind that filled my ears and tore at my throat. I winced.
The bricks were growing heavier, the mortar flaking away. The bricks loosened. I saw one sliding away from its fellows. Through the red haze of pain I glared at it and willed it back into place.
And a part of my mind went black.
More bricks shook and slid, scraping apart piercingly. I grabbed at them and pushed them back. But it was hard to move my hands. They were sluggish and slow, it was like pushing them through water, only there was no water there. My hands were numb; I could not feel. I pushed my hands against the bricks, and they disappeared within them. My throat was raw, my ears shrieked, and I could not see.
What the
hell
was going on?
Another part of my mind darkened, and then another. Panic welled up and was forced back down. More and more bricks trembled, started to fall. I pushed myself to catch them all. I felt my skull cracking under the pressure.
And then it all disappeared.
When I woke, the first thing I became aware of was a headache so intense my nose stung and my stomach heaved. Knowing my head wouldn't survive an action so violent as vomiting, I took careful shallow breaths and kept my stomach under control. My skin crawled. My clothes felt cold and grimy, soaked with sweat. My throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton, cotton filled with broken, rusted razors. And every single muscle I possessed was tied into a thousand little knots.
I opened my eyes. Big mistake. I shut them again.
“She's coming up,” said a voice I didn't know.
“I can see that,” was the tense response. That was Aiden.
Water hit my forehead. It did not feel good. I let my breath hiss through my teeth.
“What happened?” Aiden demanded.
I presumed he was addressing me. I had no intention of answering, not right then. I was in no shape to be answering questions. I was pretty sure I was supposed to be dead. Though no one ever died while they were channeling anymore. Except when they were really old, or drunk, and didn't have the focus for it.
“Talk to me, Dunleavy!”
Shut
up,
Aiden. Can't you see my brain is in danger of exploding?
“
Talk
to me!”
“Zaire, mate, back off,” said the voice I didn't know. A wonderfully sensible woman. “She's not settled back, yet.” She wiped more water on my forehead.
I raised a feeble hand. “Please, no,” I muttered in a terrible, rasping voice.
“Aye, girl, no worries. Rest for a bit. I'll look out for you.”
She had an interesting voice. Oddly clipped consonants and flattened vowels. I wagered she could insult people impressively.
I woke again when someone started poking at me. I could open my eyes without feeling pain, and glare at the man who insisted on pressing my temples. That didn't feel wonderful. “What are you doing?” I asked in a pathetically weak voice. I sounded like I had a vicious cold. My throat felt that way, too, only worse.
“You collapsed for no reason,” he said.
“Who are you?” I asked bluntly.
“Healer Dickens.”