In the morning, Vexk returned to the pool chamber with Khea at her heels. She raised the sheltering tapestry, hung to trap the heat of the thermal pool within. Warm, moist air swept over her as she glimpsed an ebony-furred figure emerging from the water. At first glance, she thought it was the Black/on/black, then detected the faint beige patches just behind the ears; it was the other Levv, called Kei.
The Black/on/black was still stretched out, asleep on the rocky ledge where she had left him. He was not as large as some males, or as muscled, and yet, she had glimpsed a presence in his eyes last night that tantalized her, an air of having seen and understood things beyond ordinary knowing, of standing at the center of events as they unfolded into something wondrous and new. Her nose twitched as she considered again the impossibility secreted here in this cave: two Levv males, one grown up wild as a kikinti in the mountains without even a proper Line Mother or males' house to mold his behavior, and the other raised off-world among an altogether alien breed . . . two more oddly shaped pieces to fit with the unsettling news Khea had brought back from Vvok. If only she could perceive the pattern that wove these disparate elements together, she would know what to do.
She stepped inside, then held up the tapestry so Khea, her arms loaded down with bundles, could squeeze past. Nisk, also wet from the pool, tied back his dripping mane and sniffed appreciatively at the aroma of the food and drink they had brought.
"Freshly steeped taif." Vexk set out the steaming jug. "And yellow-cake with mizb paste."
Nose quivering, Kei approached. His wet fur clung to his body, revealing him to be even more massive than she had thought. He would create quite a stir at a Gathering, she mused, then wondered at herself, thinking about such things out of season.
Kei sat on his haunches. "The old ones used to speak of such foods."
Vexk was touched by the starved look on his scarred face. He was obviously hungry for everything long denied him—acceptance, tradition, ritual. Of what had Levv actually been guilty all those seasons ago? Had they committed wanton slaughter without challenge, or blood-debt, or any other acceptable reason? She had to admit now she really did not know, but the Council of Lines had been out of balance since that terrible day. The odd number of Lines allowed three of them to dominate the other two, and no good would ever come of that. The ancient patterns called for six Lines, evenly balanced in power, as in the Beginning.
"Khea and I leave for the Meeting Ground soon." She broke a loaf of moist yellow-cake into smaller pieces.
Nisk's battle-notched ears raised as he squatted beside the jug of dark-gold taif and poured out a portion for himself. "The Black/on/black needs to speak to as many hrinn as possible about the creatures beyond the mountains. The Council of Lines would be the perfect time and place."
"But will they believe him?" Kei's massive shoulders bristled. "He is Levv."
His tone was edged with bitterness, and he had a right to it, Vexk thought. She met his gaze with a Restorer's frankness, which made most hrinn uncomfortable, and was impressed with how well he withstood her inspection. Not a hair stirred and the cant of his ears was quite indifferent. "It may well be that the attack on Levv was one aspect of the pattern now emerging. I have followed it most of my life, and although I do not yet know its name, I can say with certainty it is large and very involved, so that it disrupts any other smaller patterns that try to arise."
She crossed to the sleeping Black/on/black and stared down at him. "His very existence implies that it began with him." She brushed the ebony fur with her fingertips, marveling at the perfection of the sacred pattern, not an off-color speck anywhere. His eyes darted back and forth beneath closed eyelids. He shifted, cried out, then sprang, snarling and angry, and knocked her backwards. Her head cracked against the opposite wall of the cavern. A star of black light exploded behind her eyes and she only distantly felt the powerful hands constricting her neck, the claws ripping.
"No!" Dimly, she heard Nisk's voice as the other two males struggled to drag off the Black/on/black. Her head rang and her vision tunneled down to a narrow coruscating field of red. Blood thundered in her ears as though a fierce storm raged within her head. The thought flickered through her mind that Levvs were mad as the other Lines had said all along. Nisk had made a terrible mistake bringing this one here.
Then the cruel claws piercing her neck fell away, and she could breathe again. The Black/on/black hung limp in the other two males' grasp. She slid down the wall, gasping, her head pounding. Khea dashed to her side and blotted the gashes with her sleeve. Just like a fully trained Restorer, Vexk thought distractedly and clung to Khea's arm for support.
Over on the other side of the chamber, the Black/on/black's gaze was misted and strange. She thought again of the reputed madness carried in his Line, then looked deeper. It wasn't that at all, she realized. The bleakness in his eyes was raw, naked fear. Fur rose on her shoulders as she contemplated an enemy that inspired that kind of fear in a hrinn such as the Black/on/black himself, who was born to master all patterns.
With a convulsive shudder, he looked away. "I was dreaming of . . . them, the flek." He raked trembling fingers back through the disheveled mane hanging in his face. "You don't know what they can do to a world once they take it."
She had not really understood the night before, when Nisk had tried to explain about the off-world creatures beyond the mountains, but she saw the deadly truth now—in the set of his ears, the disorder of his fur, the bleakness of his eyes. This danger was much larger than anything he could explain, far beyond her limited experience. "Nisk spoke to me of this while you were sleeping." She hesitated. "They sound—very strange, but everything about this pattern is new."
"I—" He stepped toward her, then glanced down at his leg. "The pain is gone!" The bottomless black eyes were wide now, surprised. "I thought perhaps I had dreamed that too."
"Then you should be able to walk whole into the Council meeting." Nisk pushed a piece of yellow-cake into his hand. "There you will tell the Lines of these—flek—who think they can steal the very earth from under our feet. Then they will follow you back across the mountains and wipe them from the face of our world."
The Black/on/black stared at the yellow-cake crumbling in his palm. "If they can be made to listen to a Levv."
The circle of six gray monoliths on the crest of the hill had kept watch over the Lines down through untold generations. Beshha breasted the top of the hill, her daughters trailing a discrete and respectful distance behind, and stood gazing up at the striated stone of Jhii. It loomed over them all, intricately carved to memorialize great patterns/in/motion detected in the past, many of which had made Jhii preeminent in its day among the other Lines. In the center, just above her head, was her favorite, the sinuous swirl of death/in/longing, which had precipitated the downfall of Levv and set in motion the series of events that would culminate in today's victory.
Above it was incised stars/over/fire, the ancient pattern which ruled all business conducted up here on top of the hill and had brought the boon of measured discourse to her kind. She felt its powerful presence already threading through her thoughts, seeking to calm ambition, soothe edginess, but she fought it. A daring new pattern was being summoned, one that would both suit her far better and bring a new way of life to the Lines.
She eased onto the uncomfortable stone seat, worn hollow by previous Jhii Line Mothers and sniffed the scent-glyphs behind her, then crooked a claw at her daughter standing just outside the great circle. "What is this—retreat/Line/disappointment?"
"Surely not!" Syll darted forward. "Who would dare write such a thing here?"
In spite of her dislike of exertion, Beshha raked her gold-tipped handclaws across Syll's ears. "Well, it might as well be! Have these glyphs redone immediately before anyone else notices, or I will tear your throat out!"
Ears bright with blood, Syll lowered her gaze and stalked over to the bundle of supplies they'd brought. Beshha settled back against the cold damp stone, seething. She hated being wrong, but it was clear she had been too lax. Perhaps she should raise another hungry young breeder up in Syll's place. That would teach—
Orange robes fluttered at the periphery of her vision. "I never thought to see your bloated presence lolling in the Great Circle again."
Beshha's own ears flattened as she recognized the hoarse voice of Kendd's broken-toothed Line Mother, Yikan.
Yikan's yellow-and-white face was aloof. "What calamity pried you out of Jhii's warm tunnels? Have you finally killed Syll?"
"Oh, it is you, Yikan." Beshha ran an idle clawtip over the intricate scrollwork carved into the side support. "I'd heard you were dead."
"Not yet." Yikan pushed one of the silver bracelets dangling around her whip-thin arm back into place. "Unless you would care to attempt to send me through the Gates yourself?"
"Are you suggesting Line should fight Line?" Beshha tried to look shocked.
"Do not play the innocent with me, you young rag-ear." Yikan settled in the great Kendd seat directly across the circle from Jhii. "It has been done, as you very well know."
"Ah, but those days were very dark." Beshha twitched at a fold in her robes. "I dislike speaking of them."
"I have a long list of things I dislike." Yikan bared her worn teeth. "Shall I name them?"
"I doubt we have the time." Beshha flicked an ear as a line of light-blue-robed females approached the circle of stones from the northwest. "Why not list the things you can still do—at your age."
"Enough time remains for me to see a few more wet-ears like you come and go at Jhii." Yikan's gaze across the open circle was uncomfortably direct. Beshha resisted the impulse to look away. "Which is sad—some of us still remember when Jhii was an honorable Line."
She was spared having to answer by the arrival of Rebban's Line Mother, Aan, and her sturdy contingent of daughters, all wearing their manes in long plaits down their backs. She watched as the dark-brown old female greeted Yikan, then took Rebban's ancient seat, next to Kendd.
Rebban and Kendd. Beshha narrowed her eyes. They were the last of the conservatives who dictated little or no contact with the Outsiders, and today, for the first time, she was going to have the satisfaction of watching them overruled. That was what had drawn her out of the comfort of Jhii's compound. The pattern she and the others had been courting for so many seasons was nearly complete. With Fik's ascension to the head of Qartt, the Council lay beneath the claws of those who were not afraid to try patterns never before followed.
Qartt and Vvok had not arrived yet, but red-eyed Ankt still rode low in the sky. Soon, Beshha promised herself, her time would come. From this day on, nothing would ever be the same.
Heyoka's body hummed with stored power as the yirn carrying him plodded toward the river. Until Nisk had finally persuaded him to soak in the thermal pool, he had not understood the difference between drawing power and merely using what his body had already stored. The energy he had used in blueshift before had come from the ordinary workings of his own cells, and therefore had left him dazed and drained afterward.
But when he immersed himself in the steaming pool, he had felt the cells of his body accumulating thermal energy and converting it into something potent, frightening in its intensity. He felt larger somehow, too big for his skin and too full, as though if anyone touched him, he would lose this tremendous charge of energy in one gigantic burst.
The two Restorers passed them, riding double on a single scrawny yirn. It balked at the edge of the water, then waded reluctantly into the shallow ford. Vexk wore a makeshift bandage around her neck torn from the younger female's robe and he felt guilty every time he saw her. He might easily have killed her in that terrible dream-addled moment back in the cave and he wanted badly to apologize, but could find no words in Hrinnti for such an emotion. It was possible to express that one had made a slight error in judgement, or to convey probable inappropriateness of an action, but references for accepting guilt simply did not exist in the vocabulary he had so far acquired. He wondered if hrinn were so obsessed with the outside influence of "patterns," they had no need to take responsibility for wrongful actions.
Nisk's mount hesitated at the river bank, snorting at the swirling green water, so he leaned over and snarled into its ear. It lashed its tail and splashed on into the river. Heyoka's stolid beast followed without protest, and he heard the muffled splash of Kei's yirn to the rear. From the opposite bank, they angled up into the hills, following a worn trail through scrub that soon became denser and more leafy. As they climbed, Heyoka noticed a circle of huge stones set into the ground like monstrous doors into another reality.
Nisk turned back to him. "When you are ready, you must wait for the Council to notice you. Males, even Leaders of the males' houses, have no rights here and must be invited to speak."
"This is too serious a matter for games of protocol." Heyoka glanced aside at the sheltering mountains, all that stood between them and the flek. "This world has very little time left."
"For countless generations, the pattern which rules the Meeting Ground has allowed us to come together without killing one another unnecessarily," Nisk said stiffly. "We do not consider it on a par with a sport for untried cublings."
Patterns again. Heyoka rolled his eyes wearily.
Nisk rode on, gaze solidly ahead. "Expect nothing from the Council. Do not even think of what you want, when you tell them what lies beyond Levv. Line Mothers care little for other voices than their own, but if you remember that you are only a male and know nothing of our ways, they may listen."
The narrow track led up onto the broad top of the hill. The four yirn fell into single file, horned heads bobbing as they plodded up the incline. The great stones loomed, now close enough for even the incised patterns that covered them to be visible.
Just before the top of the rise, they dismounted and left the yirn in the care of bright-eyed cublings robed in an assortment of colors. As they moved downwind, the scents of assembled hrinn assaulted Heyoka, a tidal wave of Jhii and Vvok pheromones blended with a multitude of unidentified males and females. He stumbled, the taste of brass on the back of his throat. Heat surged through his body as his capillaries dilated in unison and a glimmer of blueness leaped from one set of handclaws to the other. The savage other within him surfaced and clamored to make itself heard.
The hilltop seemed to seethe with energy, as though each blade of grass, each clod of earth, every molecule of air had a life all its own. He felt an indefinable presence, hovering just at the edges of his vision, as though, if he could turn around fast enough, he would catch sight of it. Was this a side effect of so many hrinn gathered in one place, and if so, why didn't it affect everyone else in the same way? Was he just overly sensitive because he'd had so little experience mingling with his own kind?
Vexk turned to them, her pale-gray face solemn. "Khea and I will go first, but you should hear what she has to say. It involves the Outsider who accompanied the Black/on/black to this world."
Still overwhelmed, Heyoka stared numbly at the gray-and-white cubling. "Mitsu? What do you know about her?"
Khea flinched at the mention of that name and then shrank behind Vexk, who calmly smoothed a fold of the youngster's yellow robe. "Told once, this tale will be difficult enough, Black/on/black," she said, then took the cubling's arm and walked her past the onlooking daughters of five Lines down a crushed-gravel path between two of the huge stones and into the apparent hurricane's eye of the inner circle.
He followed them, Nisk and Kei at his heels, and stopped just short of the stones, peering around the edge of the closest. Lesser-ranked females drew back from the three males, ears pinned, to give them a wide, but grudging, berth. Snarls rattled in the backs of their throats. This was clearly not a place for males.
Before each of the six monoliths stood a smaller stone, carved into a huge ornate seat, each different from the rest, and in five of these sat a Line Mother. Three were lanky and scarred, one young and well-muscled, and the fifth, whom he recognized to be Beshha, was plump and sleek. Heyoka realized with a jolt that the empty sixth seat must have belonged to Levv.
A dark-gray female seated on the far right jerked to her feet at the sight of Khea. "How dare you bring that wretch here? Her blood is forfeit to Vvok!"
"Is that so, Seska?" Vexk's tone remained cool. "Then how will you pay for the restoration you requested?" She stood before the old female, tall, straight, proud—and fearless.
Seska bristled. "The guild must name another price—this cubling challenged me and lost!"
"Khea has admitted as much." Vexk's tone was leisurely. "But was that not strange behavior for a cubling as retiring as this one? She has not even passed her final gleaning."
"Knew she would not pass, no doubt." The numerous silver and gold bracelets around Seska's withered arms and ankles clinked as she shifted restlessly.
"Was it that?" Vexk turned her pale-gray face back to Khea. "Or did she offer challenge because she could not bear to watch you rip Vvok's honor to shreds before her very nose?"
The old female's lips wrinkled back over broken teeth in an angry snarl. "This matter is for Vvok to decide!" She motioned for a tawny-furred daughter to seize Khea.
"No!" To her right, a yellow-and-white-spotted female rose and stared around the circle imperiously. "This smells of Council business."
The crowd of watching hrinn milled, mumbling low asides to one another as the yellow-and-white sank back on her seat, her eyes still on Khea. "Speak, youngling. What matter endangered Vvok's honor so greatly that you risked a challenge you were too far young to win?"
Khea glanced from the yellow-and-white face back to the dark-gray one. "One of the Vvok scouts wounded an Outsider, then brought it back to the hold. The Line Mother charged me—at the cost of my own life—not to let it die. It grew so weak and ill, I took it to the Restorers. But when it recovered and Fitila came to take it back to Vvok, she said the Line Mother no longer cared if it lived or died—" The young voice faltered, then went on. "Seska met us on the path and ordered me back to the hold. But—I was concerned—the Outsider was still so weak—and crept back in the darkness. I did not understand why the Line Mother had bid me save it, or forfeit my life, then . . ."
She stared down at the ground, fringed ears trembling.
"And what did you see when you went back, youngling?" Yikan's tone was patient.
"They were . . . beating it."
Less than twenty paces away, Heyoka's handclaws scraped over the great stone.
Khea's voice was so low, he had to strain to hear her. "They demanded that it tell all it knew about Levv's end . . . and the Levv male who had come back from the stars."
Kei burst past Heyoka to enter the circle, every hair on his huge body bristling, making him seem even larger and more savage. He stared hotly around the circle of stones, then stalked to the empty stone seat and sat down. "Yes," he said, his voice underlaid with a deep, rattling growl, "let us speak finally about Levv!"