David Weber - Changer of Worlds

Songstress agreed after a moment, but if her mind voice was a bit more subdued, there was no less disapproval in it.

Songstress demanded.

Golden Voice replied calmly, Songstress glared at her for a moment, but then her tail flicked in acknowledgment. Golden Voice's mind glow was clear and bright, and Songstress tasted her sincerity as clearly as any other person present.

Golden Voice continued.

Songstress retorted, but her gaze fell once more as she tasted Golden Voice's gentle rebuke. Songstress was hands of turnings older than Golden Voice, yet in that moment Golden Voice had somehow become by far the elder, and her mind voice was chiding.

she said almost kindly.

Songstress began, then hesitated. The moment of hesitation stretched out, and then it became something else. The memory singer met Golden Voice's eyes once more, her very silence an admission of the younger female's point, for she had tasted that hunger and need in the memory songs of others. As no one but a memory singer could, she had shared it and become one with it, and as such, she knew – as no one but a memory singer could – how impossible it was not to answer.

Wind of Memory said into the silence.

She shook her head slowly, in a gesture the People had borrowed from their human friends, but Golden Voice looked at her serenely.

Her prehensile tail reached out, wrapping itself gently but tightly about Laughs Brightly.

Wind of Memory asked intently, and Golden Voice regarded her levelly for several long breaths. Branch Leaper tensed and felt the same reactions from the other members of his clan – especially Songstress and Echo of Time – as they tasted her mind glow. There was deep serenity in it, despite her youth, but also an inflexible determination, unyielding as the duralloy of the metal knives and axes the humans had given the People. It was not challenge. It went beyond that, like some irresistible natural force – like the wind that toppled even the mightiest picketwood or crown oak. He had no idea what lay behind it, yet at that moment, he felt almost sorry for the elders and memory singers of Sun Leaf Clan who must have encountered something just like it when they tried to force her to become a memory singer herself.

Golden Voice said very quietly.

It was not one of the memory singers, but rather Bark Master, second of Bright Water's elders, whose mind voice shouted the instant denial. All eyes turned to him, but he did not retreat. he said stubbornly.

Golden Voice said, and in that moment her mind voice held the regal assurance which echoed still in the mind songs of Sings Truly herself. She was perhaps a quarter of Bark Master's age and the newest member of his clan, to boot, yet she faced his vehemence with neither trepidation nor personal challenge, and Branch Leaper felt a deep respect for her – and an even deeper envy of Laughs Brightly.

Wind of Memory asked. She alone tasted almost as calm as Golden Voice, yet she watched the younger female unblinkingly, her concentrated gaze a pale reflection of the intensity with which she tasted the other's mind glow and mind voice.

Golden Voice told her.

Wind of Memory considered that, then flicked her ears in agreement.

Golden Voice continued, she used the human word, for the mind voices of the People had no matching reference, yet all who heard it knew of what she spoke <���—with an enemy with far more nests, far more people, than our humans. Laughs Brightly and I have met some of those enemies.> The tail wrapped about her mate tightened again, and his tail slipped comfortingly about her, as well.

A cold mental silence answered her, and Branch Leaper felt that same icy chill at his own heart. He had never even considered such a possibility, yet he knew now that he should have. He, too, had heard the memory songs, tasted the very mind glows, of Laughs Brightly and his human as they faced the terrible weapons Golden Voice had just described. And in those songs, Laughs Brightly had always known that such terrible human tools might be unleashed even here on the world of the People. Yet somehow the connection had never made itself for Branch Leaper, for such devices were too utterly beyond his own ken. And as he tasted the stunned silence about him, he knew he was not alone in that. That perhaps even the memory singers themselves had not recognized – or admitted to themselves that they did – the implications of all Laughs Brightly and others like him from other clans had reported to their memory singers.

Golden Voice went on with that same terrible, unflinching honesty and awareness,

we can do to avert it,> Bark Master pointed out. His mind voice was no longer stubborn. It was half-stunned and frightened, yet his response was not one of simple panic. He spoke as a clan elder, one whose responsibility it was to recognize the dangers which beset Bright Water and to avert them . . . and who knew now that there was a danger he could not avert, however hard he might seek to do so.

Golden Voice told him.

Bark Master stared at her in disbelief, and she flicked her ears with just a hint of impatience.

she said firmly, with all the authority of the memory singer she had never become.

Wind of Memory pointed out, raising a true-hand to gesture at the dense green leaves and broad picketwood branches about them.

Golden Voice agreed.

Wind of Memory began to reply hotly, then stopped, and Branch Leaper tasted her sense of surprise as she made herself consider Golden Voice's words and found a bitter strain of truth behind them.

Golden Voice went on into the silence.

Wind of Memory replied.

Golden Voice said. again that burst of curiously serene, bottomless sorrow flowed from her, but this time without the jagged, knifelike edges <���—and I will never regret it. Yet I tell you that Laughs Brightly's bond with Dances on Clouds is as much stronger than was mine with Hunter of Stars as a memory singer's voice is stronger than that of a hunter or a scout. I do not think Dances on Clouds realizes even now how much like one of the People she is, for she tastes Laughs Brightly's mind glow almost as one of the People would. You who have sung their songs know this, but you know only what Laughs Brightly has been able to tell you of it, while I have seen it as another looking in through my own bond to him, and I tell you that Dances on Clouds can actually hear his thoughts.>

one of the other elders said flatly.

Golden voice said calmly. She turned and looked up at her mate, and he flicked his ears.

he said. the tenderness and love in his mind voice flowed through them all like a gentle wind as he named his human <���—does not hear me as the People would, does not hear my thoughts as thoughts. I do not know precisely how she does hear them, for it had not occurred to me until the last few hands of turnings that she might do so at all.>

Mental ear flicks of assent flowed through his audience, for this was Bright Water Clan, and all of its people had heard the memory songs of how Laughs Brightly had made Dances on Clouds taste the mind glow of the evil-doers from whom she and he had saved the elders of Dances on Cloud's other world from murder.

Laughs Brightly went on. He cocked his head, and the other People tasted his pride and wonder at what his human had achieved. He sent a wave of love and tenderness to his mate, but his eyes met those of his clan's elders.

His mind voice trailed off, and Golden Voice took up the discussion once more.