“There’s a plan, a leader,” Tiadba said. “Someone we trust.”
This had the ring of truth. He had always wondered how anyone could survive in the unknown outside the Kalpa without training, supplies, or equipment.
Tiadba sat next to him, startling him again, her movements were so quiet and graceful. She glanced left, eyes half lidded in peaceful drowse. With a little shudder, she moved closer and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her touch was electric. His heart thumped and his hands warmed.
“You won’t lie,” she said. “And you’ll never let us down.”
“How can you be so sure about everything?” he asked, trying to be abrupt.
“Because I know you. We’ve met before,” she said. “Don’t you feel it?”
He got up, shook out his arms, and started to walk away. “Too many promises, not enough in return.”
Tiadba ran after him, wide-awake, lifted his hand, then pulled on his fingers—hard. “Promise!” she demanded. “You knowyou must.”
“Let go!” He tried to break free, and she grabbed his shoulders with a small shout. They began to roll across the dusty stage. She was stronger—females of the breed could be that way, wiry and sweetly scented. That scent was their greatest weapon. It made him much less willing to fight.
“Stop it!” he shouted as she held him down on the floor. Her face pressed close, eyes intense. They had covered their clothes with dust.
She frowned so hard that he wanted to look away in shame. “Don’t be stupid. Promise! You know you will.” Then, in a harsh whisper, lips almost touching his…“ Promise!”
“Give me something, give me hope,” he said, his voice resentful and raw. “Promise meI’ll go on the next march!”
She rolled off and got to her feet, brushing her clothes. “I’m not the one who chooses.”
“You say we know each other—but you obviously don’t know me at all.”
Tiadba placed her hands together and tipped her fingers against her forehead, eyes closed.
“You’re taking advantage,” he said. “You pick on lonely outcasts…you’re like a pretty bunch of chafe shoots held out for a pede, to lure them into the fields.” He pulled down her hands and stared directly into her eyes. There wasa connection—he could not explain it, and that angered him more. He let her go.
“If you’re so bold, why haven’t you run away on your own?” she asked. “What’s stopping you?”
He blustered, “Someone has to watch for wardens. I agree with one thing—it takes planning.”
“What if I tell you about the difficulties, just a little about what’s involved?”
“You’d betray your people?”
“I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t. I’m not responsible.”
“Is that what your sponsors tell you?”
“My mer and per are gone,” Jebrassy said.
She drew up close again. She was nothing if not persistent. “I know,” she said.
“An intrusion took them.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you spoke with our leader in the market. But before that, I told her about you. She gave me permission to meet you here.”
This rendered Jebrassy speechless. That a sama—a healer and listener—would betray his confidence as easily as Khren was almost beyond belief.
Almost.Time itself was changing, there were so many intrusions—and the wardens weren’t acting the way they used to. He could almost see the Tall Ones walking among them. Why should he trust anyone or anything?
Tiadba felt his distress and again lightly gripped his shoulders. “I’ll tell you as much as I know. You don’t even have to promise. It’s that important.”
“Did shetell you to say that?”
“No,” Tiadba said. “My risk.”
Jebrassy rolled his head in misery. “I don’t know who I am or where I’ll end up. That’s why I went to a sama in the first place.” He shuddered.
Tiadba struggled to find her next words. “Two names. Tell me what they mean. I’ll tell you one name, and you tell me the other.”
“Names?”
“Ginny,” she said.
Jebrassy backed off. Before he could stop himself, he said, “Jack.”
She looked at him, triumphant—and scared. “Two funny, ugly names,” she said. “Not from the Tiers. We knoweach other, Jebrassy. We know each other from somewhere else. It’s as if we’ve known each other forever. I’ve never felt that with anyone else.” Her eyes crossed with the intensity of her emotion.
“Some wake or another, one of us will be in very bad trouble. I think I will be the one who needs you. And you will come for me.”
Jebrassy groaned and got down on his knees, suddenly weak. It was true. He could feel the intensity of grief already—the knowledge that he would have her, that he would be faithful and bond to this female, and that he would lose her far too quickly.
Out of sequence.
Out of control.
Our lives are not our own.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he whispered.
She knelt in front of him and they placed their foreheads together, hands on each other’s temples.
“Promise me the three promises, and I’ll share—I’ll show you.”
The visitor—a useless residue inside of him—seemed to kick up in his head, trying to force him to make a decision.
Jebrassy stroked her cheek.
They swore in the way they had learned as children, repeating the words to each other over and over, until both had them precisely memorized.
Tiadba then whistled a short tune of sealing.
It was done. Jebrassy had no idea what had just happened. His eyes slowly focused. Tiadba had moved off and stood nearby, staring up. She pointed to an open half cup pushed out from the far right-hand edge of the screen, tiny in comparison to the total span, like a private box seat, but with the worst view of all. “See that?”
“A bump. It’s always been there. What about it?”
“They used to call it the Valeria,” Tiadba said. “It’s where they organized and controlled the shows. I found a way to get up there, from behind the Wall of Light. Would you like to see?”
“It’s full of dirt, right?”
“I cleaned it.”
He struggled to steady his voice and recover his attitude. “Might be interesting…but why so important?”
“The big screen is broken,” Tiadba said. “But up there is a littlescreen. Up there we can connect to a catalog of the shows they used to put on in the Diurns. I’ve watched a few. I think they tell a history. Not ours, exactly. The history of those who were here before us.”
“I still don’t know how that can help the marchers.”
“Aren’t you curious, just a little bit? To see things no other breed has seen, nor anyone else, for millions of wakes? To learn how we came to be here, and…maybe…why? We’re so ignorant,” she sighed.
“And that…”
“That’s the third thing we have in common,” Jebrassy said. “You should also know I’m impulsive. Some say I’m stupid, but I’m really just stubborn. And I care too much.”
“Four, five, and…”
“Six things we have in common?” he finished.
She drew herself up, standing just a little taller than Jebrassy, not uncommon among the ancient breed.
“If the wardens find us, or learn that we know…I think they would stop us. They would give us up to the Tall Ones. Understand?”
He nodded.
“Come with me, then. Part of the old gallery fell down a while back, right next to the proscenium.”
Jebrassy followed for about fifty yards, and then clambered after her into a darkened pit formed by the walls of a masonry chamber whose roof had collapsed. A small hatch hung open in the base of the proscenium, still partially blocked.