Butler, Octavia - Patternmaster

“Amber…”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help realizing that you were about to go after him. And of course, he knew the moment I did. He’s coming now.”

Her last words echoed Iray’s months before, when he had fought Coransee for the first time. He looked around, concealing sudden fear, and saw Coransee striding toward him. He spoke to Amber quietly. “All right, it doesn’t matter. But you get out of here. Wait your turn.”

“I don’t want a turn.”

He touched her face. “I’ll try to see to it.”

She left, glaring at Coransee as she passed him.

She was with her ten guards before they realized that they were on duty.

“I thought you’d be ready sometime today,” Coransee told Teray.

Teray considered getting up to face him, then rejected the idea. If he stood, he would have to waste part of his attention keeping his feet. He leaned back against the building wall. He was tightly shielded, as ready as he could be.

“Did you really expect Rayal to help you?” asked Coransee softly.

Teray held his face expressionless. He was almost used to Coransee invading his mental privacy by now. “If you knew I had called him, why didn’t you attack?”

“Why should I have? Only someone who had spent all but the last few months of his life in school would believe he could get help by calling on Rayal.”

Teray hit him.

The blow, not one of Teray’s hardest, bounced off Coransee’s shield. Teray struck again, testing the strength of the shield. It was like pounding with his fists against a stone wall. He remembered with longing the muteherd Jackman’s eggshell shield.

Coransee hit back, rammed Teray’s shield, not testing but trying at once to demolish. Teray’s shield withstood the blow.

Teray realized already that neither he nor

Coransee would be pounded into defeat in the usual way. Something more was needed.

Teray swept his perception through Coransee’s brain as though through the brain of a Clayark.

For an instant, Coransee frowned, seemed disoriented. But he was recovering himself even as Teray swept again. Somehow he deflected Teray’s second sweep. Then abruptly he struck back.

As quick as Teray’s sweep had been, the Housemaster almost caught him unshielded. And that deflection…

Safely shielded, Teray tried to understand what had happened. It was as though he had tried to land a physical blow and had had the blow blocked by his opponent’s arm. It was not like running against the solid wall of a shield. No Patternist could lay a mind shield around his physical body. But apparently a strong Patternist could strike out with part of his strength to deflect attacks against his body. An attack that could be sensed could at the same time be deflected. Teray thought he understood. A second later Coransee tested his understanding.

Coransee struck at Teray’s head. For a confused instant, Teray thought he perceived a physical object flying at him. A fraction later, he knew what it was, and used his new knowledge with fear-inspired accuracy.

Without understanding quite how he knew, Teray realized that he had just avoided—or at

least postponed—a cerebral hemorrhage. Coransee was unwittingly teaching him to defend himself. If only he could learn fast enough.

Teray contracted the muscles of Coransee’s legs savagely.

Before Coransee could stop himself, he fell screaming to the ground. He had been too busy guarding the vital parts of his body. He had not realized what agony his legs could give him.

And before he could shut that agony out, Teray hit him again—hit at what had to be a weakened, unattended shield.

And smashed through! He had a foothold.

Instantly Coransee forgot his legs and slashed at Teray.

Teray hit back hard, hit again and again. He was a man in armor battering a naked man. He had won. Surely he had….

Coransee slammed him back, hammered at him as no shieldless Patternist should have been able to. Teray fought with savage desperation, unable to believe what was happening. The naked man was beating him into semiconsciousness.

Finally, Coransee tore Teray loose from his hard-won foothold. Tore him loose, held him, and continued to batter him. There was no longer any question. Coransee was stronger.

The Housemaster broke through what was left of Teray’s shield and began beating Teray in earnest. Now Teray was the naked man.

Pain.

Teray could not think. He was ablaze with agony. He lashed out blindly. The old way of killing Clayarks— Coransee’s way: the large artery just where it emerged from the heart.

Coransee had been foolish enough to relax his defenses. After all, he was winning.

For all his speed, he could not reestablish them in time. Teray ruptured the great blood vessel.

Coransee’s attack collapsed. But even as he lay on the ground clutching his chest, trying to prevent himself from bleeding to death, he took his revenge.

Teray found himself suddenly disoriented. His head hurt. His head was exploding. He tried to reach up, clutching it between his hands. One of his arms would not work. He was going to be sick. He managed to turn his head so that he did not vomit over his own inert body. His mind was still working, still aware. In spite of the broken blood vessel in his brain, he was still conscious. He could still fight.

With his last strength, Teray swept through the struggling Housemaster’s brain. Coransee had no defense now. He was completely occupied with his injury. Teray swept over him again and again, leaving himself no strength to keep his own body alive. He was killing both Coransee and himself, but his awareness had deteriorated to such a degree that he did not realize it. He realized only that he could not hold on to consciousness much

longer. That he must do as much damage as he could while he could.

He did not know when Coransee’s body went into violent convulsions. He did not know when Coransee’s muscles contracted so violently that they snapped one of the Housemaster’s legs. He did not know when Coransee bit off a large piece of his own tongue. He knew nothing until just before he lost consciousness completely. Only then did he realize that he had won. Coransee was dead.

************************************

Teray opened his eyes to a vast expanse of clear blue sky. It took him a moment to see the ragged walls of the ruin and realize where he was. He was weak and tired and ravenously hungry. He tried to remember what had happened.

Then it came back to him and he sat up abruptly. Too abruptly. He would have fallen back had Amber not been there to help him. She had come from nowhere, kneeling beside him, steadying him.

“It’s over. You’re all right. Eat.”

There was food. Roast meat from somewhere. He stared at it. “What… ?”

“Rabbit, remember? We are as encircled by wild rabbits as we are by Clayarks.”

He had been out for a while, then. They had had time to cook. That was to be expected. Coransee had all but killed him. He flexed his

right arm—the one that hadn’t worked the last time he had tried to use it—and moved his right leg. Both moved easily. Satisfied, he settled down to eating roast rabbit and fresh biscuits and drinking a great deal of water. He ate in silence for several minutes, concentrating only on the food. Finally, he spoke. “He is dead, isn’t he?”

“Of course.”

“He earned it.”

She said nothing.

“I should be dead too. You saved me.”

“Healed you.”

“Did the others give you any trouble?”

“Not after they saw that he was dead. Two or three of them wanted to stop me from helping you but I convinced them not to.”

He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“They’re still alive. They’re probably going to give you trouble.”