The beat kept up, regular as heartbeat and as painful. “What am I?”
Duun looked at him sidelong. “Hatani. Like me. Self-sufficient.”
Thorn only stared at him, knowing his tricks. (Foul, Duun-hatani. Wicked and foul.)
“You have a wound, little fish. You bleed into the water. Don’t you know this?”
Thorn’s jaw set. His eyes were alive with thoughts. “I didn’t feel the wind, Duun-hatani. You caught me.” “-again.” “Meds.”
Duun looked up.
“You talked about meds, Duun, and cities. What about them?”
“Oho. The minnow takes to deeper water.” “You mean to say something, Duun-hatani. You never say anything you don’t want to say.” “Deeper still.”
“You called them. Did you?” “No.” The music grew under Duun’s fingers, shifted and changed. “They called you.” “Ellud called.” “Why?”
“To ask how you are. I told them. Improving, I said. Growing. They were satisfied.” “What’s Ellud? Why does he want to know?
Why do the meds care? Why do they look at me and never at you?”
“Ssss. There’s time. There’s a little time, isn’t there?”
“Time for what?”
“Tksss. Fool. Walk and breathe at once, can you?”
The beat picked up again, changed, became another thing, strong and temperful.
“Defy me, do you?” Duun launched into a thing more complex.
The beat followed. “Time for what?” Thorn asked. Duun shrugged.
“For Sheon.”
“The city? The meds?” Thorn’s eyes grew wild, dilate. “Gods-go there?”
“Did I teach you profanity? No. I taught you respect. You’re still a child. What a leap of reason. Did I say go to the city?”
“What do you mean-time?”
“That.” And Duun launched out on another tune. “Time was, I thought you might beat me, little fish. I thought you might come at me in my sleep. Fair or foul, I said. You ever think of that?”
“I thought of it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
A long hesitation. “I like my own sleep, Duun-hatani.”
“Ah.”
Thorn gave him a wary look. Duun grinned at him in no merry way. So Thorn got the joke as well. Jaw set. Eyes flickered in alarm.
(Guard your sleep, little fish. The rules just changed.)
Thorn smiled suddenly, darkly, without humor, and complicated the drum-pulse, making irreverent changes in hatani songs.
(What is a hatani? Duun. Duun is Duun. Like the sun. You become Duun, little fish, and never ask what Duun might be. Duun is the trees and the mountain, environment. Duun is faith kept. You sing the song. Hear the words, Thorn, wei-na-mei, minnow in my brook.)
Thorn poured the tea, sitting cross-legged on the riser in the room before the fire. His hand trembled and there was a shadow about his eyes, a bruising where no one had struck. “Eat,” Duun said, on its other side. “You’ll climb the mountain today.”
Shadowed eyes lifted to him. Shoulders were already slumped. Perhaps Thorn thought of protest. If so he gave it up. Thorn knew the game.
“The black thread,” Duun said, sipping at the tea. “Across the door last night. It’s a very old trick. Did you know that?”
“No.”
Duun grinned and swallowed down a mouthful. “Eat. Eat. You’ll break your neck on the rocks.”
Thorn filled his mouth and choked it down. He had shaved. He had washed himself. He had waked last night with a knife being laid at his pillow. “You’re dead,” Duun had whispered, ever so softly, the fifth night, the fifth night of Thorn’s sleeplessness.
Thorn had started up, grasped Duun’s wrist and lost that battle too, in the pitch black, in the haze of sleep caught for night upon night in fitful snatches.
“You’ll try to sleep today,” Duun said quietly, over tea. “It might be wise.”
Thorn looked at him in bleak dismay.
Duun grinned. “On the other hand, it might not be. Want to sleep, minnow? You might take me now, face to face.”
“No. There’s a pebble in the pot, Duun-hatani.”
Duun stopped in mid-sip. Looked at the haggard face.
“I’ve drunk no tea,” Thorn said.
Duun set the cup down on the riser, in front of his crossed ankles.
“I won’t ask my question,” Thorn said hoarsely. “That was foul. I’ll take you fair. With warning.”
Duun drew in a long breath. Thorn had braced himself. Centered himself against the chance of a blow. And Thorn trembled.