Stormrider (25 page)

“Some call us that,” the being responded, nodding amiably, bright blue eyes exuding warmth, his attention focused wholly upon Raptor as though the bounty hunter were the only man in the universe aside from himself. “We are the Disir. I am called Hart.”

“You are not as I first saw you,” Stormrider ventured.

“Oh, you mean the robes I wore then. Well, it’s what The People want to see. You are of The People, but we quickly discovered our mistake. I didn’t think it wise to change before you as I addressed you so left things as they were.”

Hart waved Raptor back to his seat in the soft sand and joined them, nimbly folding his legs cross-legged, regarding Stormrider solemnly.

“What about The Amulet,” she asked, “what you said about misplaced motivation? And earlier, when we first met, you spoke of new loyalties.”

Shaking his head sadly, Hart said, “The Amulet must be retrieved, but not for the reasons which first brought you back to Nashira.”

Taking a stab in the dark, her intuition working overtime, Stormrider suggested, “You want The Amulet returned to you?”

“Oh no. The Amulet has a life of its own now. It must find its own place. Its life-pulse is seeking. It is now—unpredictable. We no longer understand ourselves where it’s going, just where it has come from. It has traveled a path never intended for it. It has been away from us too long.”

“Away from you. Then you know of The Amulet of The Suonetar, of its history.”

Hart nodded sagely, the moist breeze coming off the water riffling the short, tight curls of his nearly white-blonde hair. The pale porcelain of his skin appeared to reflect the light into a prism of muted colors. Translucent. Again Stormrider was hit by the bizarre feeling she could see right through him.

“I know its history, most assuredly better than do you. The Amulet of the Suonetar, gift of the Sun Goddess, the one from time’s beginning, and imbued with her life, belongs not to Antaris, but to Nashira for its origins were here. It was never intended to grow in power to such proportions. It was meant as a benevolent guiding force, not an independent one. One which, by uniting with a member of its chosen society, would have guided a primitive peoples forward. But it was taken from them. Now that it is such a strong life force, it belongs only to itself.” His penetrating gaze swung between Stormrider and Raptor.

“Wait a minute,” Raptor interjected, prominent jaw thrust unconsciously forward, “You’re telling us there’s some sort of magic involved with The Amulet. I’m not one to accept the idea of sorcery,” he grumbled. Then, under his breath, “at least not easily.”

Hart laughed, head thrown back, white teeth shining in the brightness of daylight. “The Amulet possesses no magic. It possesses a life force. It lives and has been the deciding force of power, that which destined and guided leaders, and that has expanded its power. But its home is here, in Nashira, and here is where it plainly desires to be. In order to be brought here, The Amulet itself had to have allowed it, desired it.”

“Desire? The Amulet
desires
you say?” Raptor was nearly at full scoff. “How can an Amulet, a thing of cold metal and colder gem, desire? It was infused with some power long ago, that much is clear. But life? Will? Desire? That I cannot accept,” he glanced at Stormrider.

Her face hardened into that of Tanith Aesir, alter ego of Antaris reasserting herself. The lines of her jaw sharpened, its small squareness more prominent. Green eyes glittered like broken glass as she contemplated this new twist. That The Amulet could and, according to Hart, undoubtedly would, express such desires in a violent manner opened too many doors, brought too many facets into play. She was a trained Janissary, rigorously taught to adapt to new situations, yet this threw her off-balance.

“The Amulet has never expressed itself before, except in legend. Never has it rejected a leader.”

She stared hard at Hart’s bland, pleasant, almost translucent face. He appeared unperturbed by her skepticism; unruffled.

“It’s not alive,” Raptor said ardently.

“Does Nashira have life?” Hart asked the question softly. “Does she breathe and share life with everything living thing on her surface? Is she a
part
of every living thing on her surface?”

Stubbornly Stormrider met the Disir’s steady gaze. “It is an Amulet, a golden torque. I’m sworn to find it and return it. I have rediscovered Nashira, but that doesn’t eliminate the old loyalties. I will do what must be done. The Amulet was stolen. It must be returned.”

“Even if it’s with my skimmer,” Raptor put in.

“No doubt,” Hart agreed cheerfully. “But no matter. Debate is pointless. If it chooses not to return to Antaris, it will not. Be warned. Its methods might not be pleasant. Its life force is very raw. It is child-like, seeking, and interference now could be very risky.”

“If I don’t return the Amulet, place it about the throat of one more worthy than Jarrel, then there could be widespread war,” Stormrider muttered between clenched teeth, all the old intrigues, all the old politics assailing her memory at one time. “The Amulet and all its childish ‘desires’ would be the cause of such a war. If it is sentient as well as alive—desiring, then it must have an understanding of that.”

“People are the cause of war,” Hart remonstrated her gently.

“That’s poetic,” Stormrider sniped.

“The truth,” Raptor reproved.

She whirled on him in anger. “You’re a bounty hunter! Nothing more than gain drives you. You’re hardly one to be lecturing me on morals.”

“Ideals have little to do with this.” This from Hart who continued to maintain his calm. He turned to Raptor. “She will do as she must, just as she has said. Of course, the fact that The Amulet does little against its own will has to be taken into consideration.”

Stormrider fumed. Rarely had she felt such anger. And Raptor’s obvious duplicity was just more fuel for the flames of that anger. How had this become so complicated? What had begun as a simple mission for the Janissaries, to retrieve The Amulet of the Suonetar, had suddenly become a twisted thing of quests and morals, ethics and principles. She glared at them both.

“Is it merely alive then with no feeling, no consciousness, no care as to what could happen because of its actions? Is it merely a thing possessing no direction, a life force that would willingly and with full understanding, trigger a revolution and war? Surely with all that you endow it, it will return to Antaris willingly.”

Hart shrugged, an eloquent lifting of broad shoulders. “Did
you
enjoy your stint as a slave?” Words softly spoken, burning like a brand.

“
It
cannot be a slave if it can be forced to do little against its own will.”

“But I did not say it was impossible.”

The strangeness of it washed over her like a wave off the inland sea. If The Amulet did possess will and desire in any form did it constitute slavery to transport it to where it did not want to be? But an Amulet was simply an Amulet. A blood red stone set in a golden torque. It was not possible, what this man of the Disir was telling them. The arguments swam around and around in her mind. She wrestled with them and failed to come to any firm conclusion. And why was it she suspected, though determined to do what she felt she must, that whatever it turned out to be, would be exactly what Hart expected her to do?

For the first time since she had bonded with the wolves, Stormrider, the Tanith part of her, wished she could contact the High Cudan of Antaris. There was much the Circle of Nine did not know—much of which they should be told. And much, she herself should know. She had been cut off for too long. The unrest in Antaris could have already exploded into revolt, dragging others of the alliance of nations into conflict. She had to locate The Amulet. Then she would discover how much of what Hart was claiming was true. But how did one test an Amulet for life? Stormrider glanced Hart’s way and had an uneasy feeling it was going to be all too apparent.

“Why the abandoned city?” Raptor’s question broke into Stormrider’s musings. “Is it all just a false front to hide what is really here?”

Hart sighed. “It has become that. But there was a time when my ancestors lived in the city. Nashira followed an erratic evolutionary path. There were large rifts between its peoples. The People were aggressive, strong, dominators. The Minzhu were organized, independent, striving forcefully toward industrialization. Isolated from the others they pursued their goals with success, but at a serious cost to their culture. The Kadlu were gentle and naive, so child-like as to be destroyed by either The People or the Minzhu. The abilities of the Disir were so far beyond those of any of the other inhabitants of this world that our ancestors, with humor, called our beginnings space seed. We have been here so long our origins are lost in the mists of time. The peoples with whom we share this world, when they encounter us, call us the Ancient Ones.” He smiled. “The result was the joining of the Disir and the Kadlu to retreat behind the safety of the city walls and the myths the ancestor Disir left behind.”

“And the essence that remains in the city.” Stormrider observed.

Hart nodded. “Yes, the feeling of our ancestors is still quite palpable in the city. It too is alive, but not like the Amulet of the Suonetar. What the city possesses is a quiet sort of remembrance of things past. And,” he added with some modesty, “there is also the fact that we of the Disir now are able to . . . project ourselves . . . thrust the essence of our own beings where we will. It is particularly easily done within the walls of the ancient city, as was demonstrated when I first spoke with you.”

“The isolation of the Kadlu is sad. The progress they could have made . . .” Stormrider said with a rueful shake of her head.

“They have progressed as they have wished,” Hart corrected her. “They were given many opportunities and chose to accept only a few. They are not so much different than The People who have been exposed to the technology of surface fliers and a few times to the industry of the Minzhu but chose to ignore it. Every culture must move forward in its own way, at its own pace. We interfered only to protect the Kadlu from annihilation. Perhaps even that was wrong, but the choices since have all been their own.”

Stormrider cast her gaze back down the beach to where the village nestled comfortably at the shore of the sea, its people moving cheerily about their daily tasks. Even at that distance they could hear them calling out to one another, laughter tinkling across the slow dance of the waves.

Hart produced a warm chuckle irritatingly like an indulgent parent. “You are wise, Stormrider, you do not trust easily.”

She smiled wanly in return. “But in this case I must. I can linger no longer in this paradise you have created. I must find The Amulet. The People will be safe here until they can return to their homes?”

Hart inclined his head in a nod of assurance.

“Then I leave in the morning.”

Another slight nod from Hart. “As you must. But not through the city as you came. It would be less dangerous for you to travel north to where the caves spill onto the sea’s shore. They pass through the Dragonback Mountains which protect the only other entry to our country. Your wolves will know the way. They will lead you.”

“They aren’t
my
wolves,” Stormrider reminded Hart with reflexive stubbornness.

“Not in the sense of ownership,” Hart agreed. “But they are yours nonetheless. There is no other they could have bonded to but you. A gift of She Who Was One In The Beginning. The gift bestowed upon you. Upon them. It was meant to be.”

“And Starwalker knows the way too,” Raptor made it more of a statement than a question.

“If he cares to think about it.”

“And you can talk to them all, can’t you?”

Hart appeared a little uneasy, but remained truthful. “Yes, I can.”

Stormrider watched dumbfounded as Raptor added, “And you have more than a little hand in all this, don’t you? You and the rest of the people you call the Disir.”

Hart raised a blonde eyebrow in surprise, smiling faintly as if taking pleasure in discovering some kind of never-before-seen flower in full bloom. “Yes,” he admitted, “we do. Nashira is in the throes of change. The Disir have been made the middlemen. And you are very sensitive.”

Stormrider sniffed her disagreement.

Raptor ignored her.

“Well, then,” Raptor chose to follow his own train of logic, “if you decreed Starwalker join me, then you can un-decree it. Give him back his pony brain and release him.”

Starwalker pawed the soft sand nearby and snorted his disapproval in a moist way.

It is not so easy, Sachem
.

Hart gave a gentle laugh and presented Raptor with a sympathetic smile. “He’s right. It isn’t that easy. We do not decree, we simply know certain things. We cannot give him back his pony brain because the one he has is the one he was born with. He is for you. You’re not in his thrall nor is he in yours—you are partners now. You can accept or reject as is your right, but it is part of your Nashiran heritage, it cannot be
undone
.”

Hart’s words fell like the first clods of earth before a landslide. And, in the distance, the ground-thunder rolled.

Chapter 21

The last whisper of a wave sucked back from the shore in a quick gasp with the same swiftness as a finger drawn back from a flame. The waters, momentarily glassy smooth, suddenly danced and rippled as the sand beneath Raptor, Stormrider and Hart shifted abruptly. Further down the beach away from the village, a new dune hove into being, towering over its surrounding lesser cousins, sand sliding in sheets from its summit. The ground everywhere rolled and lurched, sand roiling like a dry, wind-tossed sea. And the thunder boomed off the distant cliffs in spite of the cloudless blue sky above.