Butler, Octavia - Patternmaster

“That sounds like a warning.”

“Good. At least you know me well enough to understand that much.”

He hit her just as she was turning away. She shielded too late to escape the force of the blow. She fell to one knee, and stared her hatred at him.

“I’ve taken you into my House,” he said. “You belong to me. You don’t give me warnings.”

“I’ll give you this one!” Her voice was a harsh whisper. “Hit me again and you won’t have an undamaged organ left in your body!”

Teray came between them. He stepped between them physically, and emphasized the link mentally so that Coransee understood the situation.

“This is none of your business, Teray,” said the Housemaster.

“Lord, she’s just recovering from a wound that would have killed anyone else. Can’t you at least

wait until she’s rested before you start on her?”

Amber came up beside Teray and said quietly, “Stay out of it, Teray. You’ve made your deal.”

“Keep quiet.” He didn’t bother to look at her. Both she and Coransee ought to be grateful to him. He was giving them a way out. A way to avoid a potentially suicidal confrontation. Or, at the very worst, he was joining the confrontation and thus making it less certainly suicidal for Amber. “We’re one,” he told Coransee. “She and I are one. Attacking her is the same as attacking me.”

Coransee looked at Teray with mild surprise. “She’s worth your life to you?”

“She is.” Not that he expected to pay with his life for siding with her. The moment of greatest tension had passed. Now Coransee would find a face-saving way out.

“Has she already agreed to stay with you?” the Housemaster asked. Had Teray succeeded where Coransee had failed?

“No, Lord. In fact, she refused.”

Coransee laughed aloud. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

Teray said nothing, stayed where he was. Coransee said to Amber, “Would you let him throw away his foolish life for you, girl? You know I’d kill him.”

Amber did not answer.

“You might even have some chance against me since I’m no healer. He’d have none at all.” He sounded like Darah.

“Do you really want my life now?” Amber asked softly. “Are you trying to move him out of your way so you can kill me?”

He smiled. “I doubt that that would be necessary. Believe it or not, what I’m trying very hard to do is keep both of you alive.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“For now, a link. I want you to open and let me see what slowly lethal thing you may already have done to my body. Then I want a link that will let me know if you try to do it again. Only that in place of the beating you deserve.”

“I’m linked with Teray.”

“That’s your problem—and his. To keep you from murdering me, I need a link with you. You warned me, after all. Refuse, and I’ll have to kill you here and now.”

She stared at him for several seconds, then looked at Teray helplessly.

“If you decide to fight, I’ll stand with you,” he said.

“No.”

“We have a chance. Your strength coupled with mine…”

“No, Teray.” She coughed and then was still for

a moment, as though making some inner adjustment. “Not now. Not unless I have to, and especially not with you. I’m too tired, drained. I might fail you.” She hesitated. “Shall I break our link?”

“Break it? No, of course not.”

“But you’ll be joined with him through me.”

“Only incidentally. He won’t be able to read me any more than he already does. He and I are too far apart.”

“But… he’ll be more aware of you. You won’t be able to…”

“Take him by surprise? I probably couldn’t anyway. Besides, if you want our link broken, you don’t have to ask. You can just break it.”

“I don’t want to. I should, for your sake, but I don’t want to. I want you with me.”

He only looked at her, loving her, wanting her, knowing that somehow he had to take her from Coransee. As he had to have his own freedom, he had to have her.

She turned away from the intensity of his gaze and he felt a flickering of fear in her. Fear of him?

A moment later she opened to Coransee. Teray had no awareness of the exact communication that passed between them. That they held private. Only through the link could he feel her fear suddenly expand, grow momentarily to terror, then lessen just as he was about to interfere. It lessened to anger, humiliation,

hatred.

Then, as her emotions settled, Teray became aware of Coransee as a part of the link. The Housemaster was an intruder, unwelcome, bringing discomfort to the link for the first time. Teray tried to rid himself of the sensation of being mentally invaded. He knew that Coransee could not reach his thoughts unless he opened. Yet the feeling would not go away.

Teray ran his hand through his hair, wondering how he could ever learn to live with such a sensation. The constant feeling of being watched, spied on, by a hostile presence.

Amber, jaws clenched, caught his hand and held it. Teray realized how much more aware of the sensation she must be. She was linked directly. He was only receiving through her. Through his link, he offered her sustaining strength. After a moment of hesitation she accepted it.

With a start, he realized that she was near collapse. Healing such a serious wound when she was already so tired had weakened her greatly. And despite whatever she had eaten, she was ravenously hungry. He put his arm around her.

“Can we rest here for a while?” he asked Coransee. “You can probably feel how far gone she is.”

“Is she?” Coransee glanced at Amber. “Tell him what you were going to do to me.”

“What difference does it make? I can’t do it now

without alerting you ahead of time.”

“I said tell him!”

She glanced at Teray, then looked down at the sand. “I was going to try to kill him tonight while he slept. The way we kill Clayarks. It might have worked if I could have caught him completely off guard.”

Coransee nodded grimly. “Anytime you want to try your luck, healer, you can face me. But it will be face to face,with both of us wide awake.”

She said nothing.

“Now, are you ready to go on or are you too tired?”

“I’m tired, Lord, but I can go on.”

Teray started to protest, but the look Amber gave him kept him silent.

“Get to your horses, then,” said Coransee. He went away, shouting to the others to mount up.

“At this point,” said Amber softly, “I think he would have killed me regardless of the damage I’d do him before I died. Killed me and left me here. He’s angry enough to take the risk. He still has the nerve to be outraged when he finds someone else trying to take unfair advantage.”

“Would you really have done it?”

“Of course I would have done it. That’s why he’s so angry—and that’s why he’s more than a little worried. He’s starting to think. He’s drinking

about how far he is from the nearest healer—other than me. God, I wish I didn’t feel so weak!”

“I should have attacked him the moment I saw him.”

“You haven’t given up, have you?”

He looked at her, startled. “Of course not.”

“Good. Because I think he’s planning something for you. I got something from him while he was snooping through my thoughts. Not much, but it was hostile, and it was against you.”

“That’s not surprising.”

“But… I don’t know. It feels as though he’s lied to you about something.”

“About what? Letting me go on to Forsyth, or… ?”

“I don’t know. I have to think about it more. I’ll tell you as soon as I think I’ve figured it out. Hopefully, I’ll tell you before I have to tell Mm.”