Farfetch

"Krinata!"

Icy Dushau hands grabbed at her slick fingers, trapping them. Her vision spun, her heart thundered in shock. Dushau voices gabbled incomprehensibly over the final crashing chords of atonal Dushau music. A whisper somewhere beside her: "I lost Frey. I lost your son. It was my fault, Threntisn."

"I couldn't keep him from going to you. He said he'd search for you a thousand years and follow you the rest of his life. In the end he didn't feel you'd failed him."

A heavy sigh was the only answer.

Krinata felt pulverized, aching in every muscle and joint as she hadn't since they'd first left Truth. She pried her eyes open, discovering she was sitting cross-legged, leaning on the whule in her lap. She raised a hand, twisting it free of a Dushau grip. It was wet. Sticky. "What happened?" The fire had burned low, chill darkness engulfing the unfinished hall. People were moving around.

"Here," said someone, and a wet cloth was pressed into Krinata's hand, reeking of antiseptic, stinging her flesh.

She felt ice-cold, stiff. But she forced her eyes to focus on her hands. Blood. They were covered with dark red blood. The finger board of the whule in her lap was also smeared with it. "Where—how did we—" She vaguely remembered setting out to grieve for Frey, to lure Jindigar out of himself—but nothing after that.

Seeing her eyeing the instrument, Darllanyu said, "You played Lelwatha's whule as well as Takora ever did—though how you could with only five fingers, I don't know."

The whule had been left to Jindigar by Lelwatha, the eldest member of Kamminth's—Jindigar's last Oliat. She'd met Lelwatha only minutes before he died protecting his zunre. He'd been dark, emaciated, elderly, with deep, wise eyes. But some other part of her remembered him as lighter-colored, jolly, wickedly humorous, intense at composing for whule and durichord. He had taught her to play on this very whule, painting her fantasies of how she'd take Du-shaun society by storm at her next Renewal if she could learn a few chords to accompany her splendid singing voice.

Dizzy with the doubled vision, Krinata fought clear of fantasy as her eyes came to Jindigar.

He was lying beside her, the blanket pulled up to his chin, Za

He blinked at her, then smiled languidly, whispered, "It's all right now, Ontarrah." He pushed the cup aside and struggled to sit up, barely able to move without Za

Everyone began to talk at once. Finally Darllanyu summarized recent events, and he focused on her, enchantment suffusing his features as he croaked, "Don't I know—Dar? Is it really—I thought I contacted—but—" Enchantment faded to puzzlement. "Avelor?"

They all told him of the deaths, Darllanyu ending with, "We're only a triad now, and since Sarvesun won't balance you, I don't know how we can constitute any sort of Oliat."

"This community needs an Oliat," declared Threntisn, eyes narrowed as he surveyed them all. "I will modify my position. If you'll accept Jindigar as your Center, and he survives it, I'll take the Archive from him—and take my chances with it."

That was met with an uproar, Darllanyu's voice cutting through it all. "You don't know what you're asking. It's much too late for him to Center. He's a priest—"

"I know what a priest is. It's no more than you're asking of me. And we all have the whole community to consider. I leave it to your professional judgment."

He dusted the knees of his trousers and pushed through the group to the door. Someone started to go after him, but Jindigar raised a hand, panting with the effort but seeming to have sorted out the realities of the situation very quickly. "Let him go! His suggestion won't help, anyway. Is there anyone here who'd work with me?"

Eyes suddenly inspected the fire, faces going stony. Finally Za

"Then, while someone goes for your Active Priest, we will leave—though I think I'll have to be carried."

Krinata began the slow, painful business of getting her stiff, numb legs under her. When she was sitting on her heels, Darllanyu said into a breathless silence, "Jindigar, we have no Active. You will have that office in Renewal."

Jindigar stared. "No Active? What happened to—" He rapidly named off a list of Dushau.

Answers came from different people around the circle, until in the end Darllanyu said, "None of them are here, though some may still be on their way. We have so little talent left, we dare not attempt another Oliat without guidance." She told him of the way Avelor's bad judgment had led them into ambush. "Avelor's wasn't adequately balanced. But if you would take Active, I will work with what we have."

An Aliom priest was "active" only during Renewal. Knowing Darllanyu wanted to spend Renewal with Jindigar, Krinata appreciated the woman's sacrifice. But Jindigar said, "No, I can't do that while Threntisn's offer stands and while the community is threatened." He sounded weaker as he added, "You haven't mentioned the Squadron." When they'd filled him in on what they knew, he mused, "Tornadoes? Well, even so, it can't be much longer until they find us. Tomorrow—tomorrow we'll see if I can constitute an Oliat. Tomorrow...." He fell asleep in mid-word.

But it was three days until Jindigar was strong enough to sit in a chair for more than an hour, and two more before he was walking. Darllanyu kept Krinata informed, often by sending Cyrus with a daily bulletin. She hardly needed the news, though. There was an awareness in the back of her mind, a growing strength that kept a smile on her face. She accepted the residual link, far short of a duad, and never thought she was responding to it when it suddenly occurred to her that Jindigar would love to see Imp.

She had been lying on her back in bed, drowsily realizing it was getting light, when Imp leapt in through an open window and deposited a still flopping fish on her chest. Stifling an outcry, she dried the piol off and took him and his fish to the Dushau* compound, trying to convince him to gift Jindigar with the fish. The Dushau who met her looked dubious, but Imp took his fish and scampered past the gate as if homing on a scent. Much later Krinata learned that Imp had found Jindigar's bed and had deposited the cold, wet fish under his nose, making him laugh for the first time.

Later she sent Jindigar word of how their Cassrian orphans had been adopted by a childless Cassrian couple who were giving them the kind of love they needed, while Terab and Irnils were accepted by the Holot community.

She hardly saw any of the other refugees. After being cooped up with each other for nearly a year, it wasn't surprising that they didn't seek each other's company.

Nevertheless, she was enjoying an upwelling sense of health and vitality. The nightmares had stopped. All pangs of guilt and shame over Prey's death were gone, and she no longer wondered which passing Dushau avoided her eyes because she was a zunre-killer. She went about her duties in the fields, filling in for people sent to dig defense trenches, bunkers, traps, and deadfalls with more cheer than their situation warranted.

The settlement's scouts had observed the hives on the plain above the cliff becoming ever more touchy, and a skywatcher had reported three orbiters passing overhead the previous night. Artisans redoubled their pace, fashioning crude weapons from native material; labor was pulled off the job for target practice with stu

Irnils turned out to be the champion shot with a stu