With her webbed fingers D’Eyree rapped out their private call code. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the slit door opened, and she stepped into a room the duplicate of her own. D’Huna faced her, looking strange without the Eyes. D’Eyree had never seen her without them since they had become wearers on the same day.
“Kin-close,” D’Eyree spoke first, a little daunted by the unfocused stare the other turned on her—as if D’Eyree were not there at all. “I have been told a tale I cannot believe.” Her voice trailed away.
“What can you not believe?” D’Huna asked in a voice as lacking in animation as her face. “That I have put aside the Eyes, that I am no longer to watch and ward? If it is of that you speak, it is the truth.”
“But why have you done this thing? All—all of us know that the Lurla can be sluggish at times, that it is hard to drive them to their task. Of late years this has grown more and more the case.”
“With the storm,” D’Huna did not answer her directly, “I learned what the Lurla have become. Three would not answer the Eyes, even when I used the full force of my will. Therefore I failed Nornoch by so much. Let another who can bring more force to bear take my place, lest the wall crack at last.”
“Are you sure that another can do better?”
At that sharp question life showed in D’Huna’s face; there was a flicker in her large eyes. She stared at D’Eyree as if she still wore the Eyes, was attempting to bring their strength to bear on her sister wearer, to read her thoughts.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Have you sensed no difference in the Lurla?” D’Eyree might be grasping now for a small scrap of hope, but if she could make D’Huna question her own self-judgment perhaps there was a way out for them all. “As I have said, they have been sluggish of late. Perhaps it is not that our powers fail, but that the Lurla are more armored against us.”
“Be that so—then it will be also said that the Feeding once made them obey, that without it they are beyond our holding. Let another who is newly trained, perhaps stronger, stand in my place and try.”
The Feeding! So D’Huna was half converted to that belief. But did she not understand the danger in allowing that thought to spread? Perhaps she, D’Eyree, should keep to herself the observations she had made, or she would be giving ammunition to the enemy.
But even as she reflected, D’Huna’s expression changed. She threw off that blankness and her interest awakened.
“So—you have found them sluggish. Tell me—how many failed you this time!”
“Why should you—“
“Why should I think that?” D’Huna countered. “Because you are afraid, D’Eyree. Yes, I can read it in you, this fear. You sought me out, wishing to learn why I put off the Eyes. That being so, I think that it follows that you have also found your power failing you. There is no place for a wearer whom the Eyes fail. Would you be humbled before all the people by being forced to a trial? Set aside the Eyes by your own will; let them not be torn from you so that all may see a piteous thing worthy of contempt!”
“It is not so easy.” D’Eyree longed to deny the other’s accusation. But one cannot tell untruths to a wearer. “D’Fani speaks with the council. He urges a return to the Feeding; he promises the Voice will speak—“
“Suppose that it does and it tells of another storm such as that just past? And suppose a wearer who no longer has full power strives to keep the Lurla to their task and fails—shall Nornoch then fall because of her pride?”
“It is not pride, no—nor fear, save a little,” D’Eyree protested. “If we revert to the Feeding, then, I believe, it is better we quickly, cleanly, return through wind and wave to that which brought us forth, not sink back by degrees, forgetting all D’Gan taught. For the Feeding is evil, that I believe above all!”
“Which is strange coming from one sworn to nurture the Lurla above even her own life!” It was a man’s voice.
D’Eyree spun around to face the speaker.
D’Fani! she shaped his name with her lips but did not utter it aloud.
12
He stood there arrogantly, taller than most other males, if less robust of body. His quick, dominant mind blazed through his eyes. At that moment D’Eyree in a flash of intuition knew what made him a threat to her and all her kind. D’Fani had part of the power, not as the wearers had it, but enough so he resented that he had not the right to the Eyes. Because he lacked them he was her enemy.
D’Fani was no warrior either. He was inept with any weapon save his tongue and his mind. But those he had sharpened to his use so that he had gained ascendancy over others with greater strength. In their world he had carved a place, now he aspired to a greater one.
In this moment of their eyes’ meeting, D’Eyree knew this. Now she not only feared for herself, and vaguely for Nornoch; she feared for a way of life that D’Fani would destroy so that he might rule.
“You are sworn to defend the Lurla,” he repeated when she made no answer. “Is that not so, Eye Wearer?” There was in him that same strain of cruel maliciousness which D’Atey showed, save that here it was a hundred times the worse.
“I am sworn so,” D’Eyree answered steadily. “I am also sworn to the way of D’Gan.” Her future might be forfeit now. She had feared such a meeting, yet at this moment she drew upon some inner strength she had not known she possessed.
“If the Lurla die, then where do the precepts of a man already long dead lead us?” He had assumed the mask of someone being reasonable with a child or one of little understanding. But D’Fani classed all females as such.
To argue with him was folly; she could make no impression, that she knew. And that he would force a trial on her was probable. Would any of the other wearers support her? She thought that she dared not count on that, not after this exchange with D’Huna. It would seem she had dragged disaster upon herself by this impulsive visit here. But, that being so, she must waste no time in regrets but turn her whole mind to the struggle D’Fani would make her face. As much time as she had—
Time? Something dim, a wisp of memory stirred deep in her mind—a strange memory she did not understand. Time was important, not only to her but to someone else — Just as in that flash D’Fani’s motives had been clear for her to read, so now did she have an instant of otherness—a sensation of being another person. It was frightening, and her hands went to her forehead, to press above the Eyes.
What had she seen, felt, in that moment of disorientation? It was gone, yet it left behind a residue of feeling, or urgency that she must accomplish some necessary act. With the techniques of a wearer she willed that away. Only D’Fani was important now.
“Do those weigh heavily upon you, Wearer?” he demanded. “There is a remedy. Put them off. Or would you have them taken from you for failure, after proof before the people that the Lurla will no longer answer you?”
“There can be no such proof!” She held her head high. That teasing memory-which-was-not-true was gone. “Who are you to presume to judge a wearer’s fitness?”
She was reckless, excited, as if she were forced to challenge him so that no more time would be wasted. And her words reacted on him as one of the mind-thrusts did upon a Lurla. He did not visibly twist under it, but the color of his scaled flesh deepened.
“There is one way to judge a wearer—a trial. And since D’Huna has relinquished her Eyes, there is already one arranged. It would seem you will have a part in it also.”
Did he expect her to beg off? If so he would be disappointed. Half-consciously she had known this would be the end. Her voice was still even and controlled as she answered:
“So be it, then.”
Whatever mission had brought him to D’Huna’s quarters seemed forgotten as, with a gloating look at D’Eyree, he left. When he was gone D’Eyree turned to the other woman.
“You gave him an open door when you put aside the Eyes.”
“And you gave him another,” D’Huna replied. “I was obeying the law when I could no longer control the Lurla. If you do no better, then the longer you hold the Eyes, the more you are at fault.”