Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

Ratha found herself unable to answer. At last she said,“Fessran, this season has been difficult for all of us. And I didn’t realize… ”

“Do you know why I’m so sure about him, Ratha?” Fessran interrupted suddenly. “Because at night, when I’m lying in the den with him, smelling his scent, I can see what he will be. In the dark I can see him running along a hill crest with a torch in his mouth, his fur silver and his eyes flame. And that fire will burn for the Named, if you give it a chance.”

Ratha stared at Fessran, not knowing what to say. She wondered if the strain of the drought and the move had somehow pushed Fessran onto trails that led beyond reality.

She tried to steer Fessran away from her vision and her strange conviction. Softening her voice, she said,“I know you can’t help loving cubs. It’s part of what you are. Most of the clan sees the Fessran who is the Firekeeper leader, who calls others soft as dung about treelings, who chews the ears of anyone who gives her any nonsense. I have seen the one who ran beside me with the Red Tongue, andI also see the one who loves cubs. But this cub is a mistake. He won’t be able to give back what you are giving him. Please understand. I’m not trying to be cruel either to you or to him.”

Fessran’s gaze pierced her. “Do you really know by looking at a cub’s eyes what he will be like? Do you have some infallible gift that says this one can be Named and this one cannot? I don’t think so. It isn’t as easy as that. And I don’t think you are as sure as you pretend to be.”

“I’m not,” Ratha admitted. “But what my eyes and my nose and my belly tell me is that this cub is worthless to the clan. Khushi never should have brought him, and you never should have kept him.”

“Is that how you think of him?” Fessran’s gaze and voice had a raw edge. “As something that just happened? A creature that died and must now be buried?”

“An Un-Named one whose grandsire probably left those scars in your shoulder,” Ratha said, hardening her voice.

Fessran flattened her ears.“You think you’ll frighten me with that again? Oh no. Just because Shongshar’s blood may run in this cub is no reason to say he will have to grow up that way. It was not just Shongshar’s long teeth that led him to take the trail he did.”

Ratha broke off and stared at the cub, trying to find some indication that she was wrong after all. But Mishanti was diffident, refusing to answer her gaze and turning his head away in the shy way of the Un-Named. What Ratha could see of his eyes held little promise. She swallowed hard, wishing for Fessran’s sake that there wassomething. But she couldn’t lie to herself or to Fessran.

“I cannot accept him in the clan, Firekeeper.”

The dregs of Fessran’s hope seemed to run out of her, making her shrink down. To Ratha’s eyes she seemed to grow thinner, harder. Only her eyes held a trace of softness, and that was for the cub she guarded. Mishanti arched his back, rubbing his little spike of a tail under her chin.

Ratha saw doubt flicker at the edge of her eyes like a snake’s tongue and seized it.

“Fessran, this is a blind trail you run, an empty husk, a dried bone. Next birthing season, you will have your own cubs. Save your love for them.” Ratha paused. “I promise I will not kill this cub. I will take him to the same place as I took the others. At least one of those survived. Perhapshe will too.”

“But I will never know him,” Fessran said in a dried-up, desperate voice. “Don’t you understand that? I will never know him.”

“There is nothing there to know,” Ratha said in a low voice that started to turn into a growl.

“How can you be so sure?” Fessran cried. “You’re not, are you? You are afraid. Afraid of something I don’t understand. You are more frightened by this than you were of Shongshar. What is it, then, that stalks you, and makes you turn and strike out, even if the one before you is only a litterling?”

Fessran’s words struck deep, as if into the heart of a flame, and the sparks they threw coalesced into Thistle-chaser’s face. Ratha shuddered, squeezed her eyes shut, and thrust the memory aside. No, she could not face that, not even now.

“All right. I’ll tell you what I fear. You know that there is something in our kind that sets us apart from the others around us. There are very few of us and many of the Un-Named. Why we have come to be, I don’t know. Why we have the gift that lights our eyes, I don’t know either.”

“We are more clever than the Un-Named,” Fessran grumbled. “Is that such a big difference?”

“No, it is not just cleverness. It is something else that we don’t have a word for. It is what makes us Named and the others not.” Ratha drew a breath. “And what frightens me is I know we can lose this gift. When I was exiled from the clan after I brought the Red Tongue before Meoran, I walked trails with the Un-Named. Some were as clever as we, others no better than herdbeasts, but many stood somewhere between. It was they who frightened me most of all, for what I saw in their eyes was that gift fading away….”

But it was what I saw in Thistle-chaser’s that tore me most of all.

Fessran looked away.“So those who do not have this gift taint us if they come near?” She snorted. “Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t the ones who are tainted. What has this gift you speak of really brought us? The sharper the fang, the deeper wound it can give and the worse pain.” She looked down at Mishanti. “The Un-Named do not have to judge their own and cast them aside. And when the judgment comes from fear, clan leader?”

“Then blame me and leave the marks of blame on my coat. But I have to do what is right for our people,” Ratha said. “The cub must be taken from clan territory so that he does not mate with females of the Named. And he must go now, so that the pain of his going is less.”

Fessran lowered her chin over the cub and raised her hackles.“Mishanti is mine.”

“I won’t fight you, Fessran,” Ratha said quietly. “You may deny the power of Shongshar’s teeth, but the wound they gave you will tell.”

Pain whipped the Firekeeper’s face into a mask of slitted eyes and bared teeth. The eyes were wild with the knowledge that Ratha’s words were bitterly true; that if it came to a fight, Fessran would lose.

“Give him to me. Now.”

Suddenly the eyes were gone from in front of her, and Fessran became a sand-colored streak that blurred the ground near the fire. The Red Tongue spit sparks as Fessran dug a torch into its heart and lifted the flame aloft. Her jaw trembled so that her teeth shuddered against the torch shaft, but she swung the flame around so that it blocked Ratha from Mishanti.

The shock of seeing the Red Tongue raised against her in Fessran’s jaws seemed to wrench the ground from beneath Ratha’s feet. She staggered, squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them again to find the one who had been her friend standing before her with a flaming torch.

“Will you burn me with my own creature?” she hissed. “Maybe you would be right to do so. The two gifts of the Named burn too brightly and leave only ashes.”

A wordless, agonized howl broke from the Firekeeper. The firebrand swung, but it went past Ratha and soared free back into the fire-nest. Fessran faced Ratha, her sides heaving.“Take him then, because I can’t kill you. Because my cursed memory still lets me see the times when you and I ran the trails together, carrying the Red Tongue in our jaws.” She took a shuddering breath. “But before you go, you should know something else: You drove your own daughter away forthe same reason you are tearing Mishanti from me.”

Ratha felt a shock go through her body, almost paralyzing her.“How do you know this? I never told anyone. You’re good at lying, Firekeeper. I almost believed you.”