Mind Over Matter Page 5

probably just making sure she didn't fall straight back over again, but there was something almost tender in the touch.

  The tent stood a dozen yards or so below the edge of a forest draped like a cape around the harsh peak of the mountain. Dora guessed the Sherim must be up there somewhere, but she couldn't make out the clearing. The sun hung low but strong to the West, the sky just beginning to shade to gold above miles of open downs, rolling and falling away to a horizon blue-purple with heather.

  Nearer at hand, a tidy little fire burned in a neat ring of stones. An ordinary fire, not the strange chemical fire that Keshnu had developed to light the catacombs under Vessit. The air carried such a spicy scent that Dora wondered if Keshnu might have added some incense. It wouldn't be the oddest thing a Wilder had ever done.

  A blanket lay on the grass by the fire. Keshnu directed Dora to sit, then crouched down nearby, balancing effortlessly on the balls of his feet. Dora hunched her blanket tighter around her shoulders and looked the Gift-Giver straight in the eye. To her surprise, he looked away, gazing toward the horizon for a moment.

  It was the first time Dora had made anyone nervous in far too long. If her head hadn't ached so much, she might have smiled. Except that if Keshnu was nervous, it could only be because he knew what he had to say would hurt her. Still, she found her voice level and quiet despite the tightness of her throat as she said, "What happened?"

  "You remember nothing?" Keshnu's eyes flicked to hers, then down to the fire.

  "I remember everything, I think, but I can't understand any of it." Dora glanced over her shoulder toward the tent. "Just images."

  "Well, I don't want to speculate on what happened to your logic without questioning you in great detail." The Gift-Giver brightened, his shoulders lifting slightly as he turned his full regard on her. "You put the Sherim back together more neatly than I would have believed possible. I am a little worried I may never get it open again."

  "I'm sorry." Dora caught herself just short of fiddling with her bandaged finger. That could only bring pain.

  "There are others. And if the abilities you showed can be developed further, there's every reason to think you may be able to reopen it." Keshnu smiled. "That, of all things, you need not worry about."

  Dora frowned. A gust of wind ran its bony fingers up inside her sleeves and across her back. She pulled the blanket tighter yet around herself. "What should I worry about, then?"

  "If you must ask in such unforgiving terms, the answer is everything that happened after that." Keshnu's face hardened, his laughter-line wrinkles smoothing away to something more like the look he normally reserved for Rel. Dora suppressed a shiver. "I think you experienced some sort of systemic logic breakdown. You became violent when I tried to intervene to stabilise you."

  "I must have panicked." She was glad Wolpan wasn't around to hear her say that. She shivered again. "I'm sorry."

  "Panic is understandable, at least insofar as I can understand the state at all." Keshnu managed to make his smile both gentle and sad, but she could read the uncertainty dancing behind his eyes. "I had to resort to drastic measures when your mind started to drift out of your head. Does any of this make sense to you?"

  Dora drew her legs into her body, hugged them with the blanket wrapped around her arms. "After that, all I can remember is darkness. It's as if... I... I can remember the things you've said, and match them up to my memories, but only the bits you've described make sense. I think I remember trying to kick you."

  "Your Sherim - your Gift - opened somehow while I was trying to get you back inside your head. The Wild Power you unleashed was beyond anything I've ever seen. It was all I could do to preserve my own identity. I have no words for what you did to the First Realm, but I suspect it will have been felt all the way to Vessit."

  Dora remembered the thrill of breathing pure power, the Sherim a bottomless reservoir in her hand. Quietly, she said, "I was in the Second Realm. Under attack. I think I was just trying to get home."

  "To all appearances, you remained in the First Realm. You fell over in the course of our struggle." Keshnu matched his tone to hers, barely above a whisper, but nothing could hide the honesty in his face. Almost before he spoke, she heard the worst of it. "Whatever you did, or thought you were doing, it made gravity behave as if you were still standing. Wolpan and Thia were lucky to escape without serious injuries."

  A shiver ran through Dora, and she found tears in her eyes. The wall of green to her left, blue sky and sea to her right, the forest hiding the shore below. If she'd lain on her left side, she could see how the world might have appeared that way. The trunks of the trees round the edge of the clearing, and the shade between them, might well have blurred together into the planks of a bridge.

  She clenched a fist in reflexive frustration, only to receive a sharp reminder of her damaged finger. The pain pushed the tears out to run down her cheeks, and she buried her face as best she could in her shoulder. Despite squeezing her eyes shut against the prickling of the rough wool, she couldn't shut out the awareness of Keshnu, right there, aching in literal and figurative sympathy with her.

  No, that wasn't right. How did she know what Keshnu was feeling? For that matter, how did the Wilder know what she was thinking? How were they even thinking in the same language? The questions gaped like an abyss in her mind, a great dark monolith of wordless horror. She wrestled it, her grip fragile and weak.

  Keshnu's hand fell on her shoulder like snow, and the empathy that seeped through the touch did nothing to warm her. His words shimmered faintly as he said, "They were not seriously harmed. And you'll learn to control this power."

  "What if I kill someone first?" Her voice squeaked and then broke outright, ending in a hoarse whisper.

  "I will not let that happen." Keshnu's voice came with a conviction and a force that stunned. He kept it quiet, but his words tunnelled through the desperate edge of Dora's fear. Her mind cleared. She glanced up and met his eyes, but they were opaque silver once more.

  The snap of canvas flapping in the wind announced Wolpan's exit from the tent. Keshnu twisted to look over his shoulder, frowning. The Four Knot straightened, and approached the fire in swift, straight-legged strides. The lines of her face grew deeper as her gaze fell on Dora, but she addressed Keshnu first. "Thia will be fine. She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, daylight be damned."

  "That's good to hear." Keshnu's voice held as steady and gracious as ever, but his eyes flicked to Dora's for a moment. She found herself wondering what had passed between Gift-Giver and Four Knot while she'd been unconscious. Maybe Keshnu had learned how bad Wolpan was at her job.

  The Four Knot looked down at her. "Are you all caught up?"

  "I think so." Dora stared into the fire. Looking up at Wolpan was too much of a reminder of how pitiful she must look, curled up in a blanket in broad daylight. It was all she could do to keep from mumbling, "At least, as much as I ever will be."

  "Good." Wolpan knelt to Dora's left, a little in front of her, and leaned in to look into her face. "Dora, I don't want to be cruel or blunt about this, but- Dora? Are you alright?"

  Dora glanced up, then back to the fire. She tugged at her blanket again, but it wasn't going any tighter. Her jaw tightened, Wolpan's attitude getting far too much under her skin. Rather than speak and risk ranting at the Four Knot, Dora gave a single mute nod.

  Wolpan's hand landed on her shoulder, hard and bony. Her touch wasn't cold, exactly, but Dora felt less warm for it. Her tone sharper, the Four Knot said, "Look at me, please, Dora. This is hard enough without me having to repeat myself."

  "I'm listening." Dora muttered the words, fighting to keep her voice low.

  "Then show it, girl." Wolpan's tone narrowed further. Good job they were nowhere near a Sherim, or the contempt in the other woman's words would have cut Dora to shreds where she sat. "Look at me, please."

  But they were near a Sherim. Dora had one in her head. Why weren't Wolpan's words coming to life? Dora could tell
by the pain behind her eyes that she wasn't cured. Her Sherim had to be tightly shut, but who could have shut it? She'd been unconscious when it closed. Hadn't she? What if it slipped open again? Sherim were unpredictable. She'd never be safe around Wolpan again. Well, maybe that would give her an excuse to avoid the Four Knot.

  "Dora?" Wolpan accompanied her question with a squeeze of her hand. An ache welled up through Dora's shoulder, spilling down into her chest. She grunted quietly. Wolpan said, "Are you sure you're alright?"

  "You're hurting her." Keshnu reached across and lifted Wolpan's hand away. For all his compassion, Dora felt the first stirring of a blush of shame. He finished, speaking over Dora's head. "Say your piece."

  "What good will that do? She's miles away." Wolpan sat back on her ankles. The sun caught her hair, bleaching it almost the colour of her skin. "She needs more rest. Maybe even one of your doctors, I don't know. I don't want to have to do this more than once."

  "I'm right here, and I'm fine." Dora couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice, her words emerging barely above a growl. "If you have something to say to me, say it."

  "Don't be petulant, dear." The Four Knot's voice softened a touch, but not far enough to sound genuinely concerned. "This is for your own good."

  "What is?" Dora's eyes welled up as she narrowed them. She needed to get