The Ajin himself cut the rope from Linfyar’s neck, lifted the boy to his feet. For the first time he saw the shallow hollows where Linfyar’s eyes would have been if he’d been born with eyes. Distaste strong enough to smell rolled out of him, though he controlled it immediately and patted Linfyar on his sleekly furred shoulder. “Sorry about that, boy,” he said, a smile in his voice. A deep warm flexible voice he could manipulate with an actor’s skill. “Some of my people are too scary for good manners.”

  Thinking, Get your bigoted hands off him, you bastard, biting her tongue so she wouldn’t say it, Shadith jumped to her feet and pushed between them, trembling with the resurgent fury that threatened to burst out of her control. There was a sick twisted loathing in the man that ran along her nerves like vomit; he hid it well enough from everyone but her, but it was foul. Linfyar put his hand on her arm. “Oh Shadow,” he wailed, doing his pitiful act so well that for a heartbeat she was almost fooled, then had to restrain herself from slapping him so violent was her relief. “Oh Shadow,” he repeated in a trembly, die-away voice, “What’s happening? What is he doing?”

  She sucked in a breath, let it trickle out, patted his hand in silent gratitude. “Nothing bad, Linfy,” she said, injecting into her voice the cooing condescension she felt the Ajin would expect from her, a semi-adult calming the fears of a deformed child. “He’s going to take us someplace where we can be more comfortable and have a hot meal and a bath.”

  The Ajin smiled, a broad, charming almost-grin, his eyes twinkling at her with an intent warmth that would have been more convincing if there had been anything behind it but calculation. Her mindriding gift was developing rapidly into a full-blown empathic sense; Shadith wasn’t too sure she liked that. There were things she absolutely didn’t want to know, and she resented other people’s emotions—or lack of them—making demands on her. She didn’t want to know about the Ajin’s xenophobia. Know about it! Feel it was more like the truth; it was spreading its slime all over her. Have to remember to ask Lee how she blocks out this kind of thing. God! What’s she doing now? The Ajin put his hand on her shoulder. She stiffened a little, couldn’t help it, but he seemed to find that reaction quite natural. Conceited slime. “Come, child,” he said, wooing her with that voice like dark suede burnishing her senses; he turned her toward the boat, walked beside her while Linfyar was left to follow behind. “I’m sorry about this.” He touched her bandaged wrist. “Once you understand why, I’m sure you’ll forgive us.”

  She gave him an awkward little nod, her equivalent of Linfyar’s pathetic act. Oh yes, O mighty conqueror, I’m just a pore little singsong girl flustered by your attentions.

  He was very good, kind and solicitous, settling her and Linfyar on cushions in front of the wheelhouse, tucking blankets about them, bringing them cups of hot spiced cha. She suspected there were drugs in it meant to put her out so she’d not see where the boat was going. His prime base, if her luck hadn’t run completely out. She drank. The cha was hot and clean and refreshing. With a slight undertaste that told her she was right. Hah! Play your games; I wouldn’t spend a rotten eyelash to find out where we’re going, I just want to get there. Linfyar sniffed at his tea; she saw his ears twitch, then he emptied the cup with innocent gusto, set the cup down beside him and began singing softly, a plaintive lovesong from his home city; he sang just loud enough to blend his clear pure voice with the sounds of wind, water and the boat’s motor. When he began interrupting himself with yawns, he curled up with his head in Shadith’s lap and went peacefully to sleep.

  Shadith finished her cha and set her cup down; she leaned back against the wheelhouse and felt the motor’s vibrations the length of her spine and across her sore shoulders. It seemed to crawl into her bones and was as soothing as whatever that drug was in the cha. Aleytys was suddenly on the bow rail smiling at her, then the figure melted into a fragment of mist. Half asleep, she saw the Ajin take up the cup Linfyar had used and toss it over the side, but didn’t bother getting angry again. He was a nothing. He didn’t matter anymore. Hollow man. Hollow. Hollow. Hollow man. Aleytys on the bow made out of mist, she’s realer than you. Real, oh real, what’s real, am I real? A voice in Lee’s head, a knot of forces in an ancient trap. Got a body now. That’s real. Gonna have fun with this body, won’t lay it down till it’s old old old, you hear that, body? Old old old.

  Hello, oddity.

  Hello yourself. She giggled. Who you talking about odd?

  *You’re plotting something.*

  Plot, plot, got no plot.

  Sounds more like got no brain.

  *You’re messing in it, you ought to know.*

  Ah. Sobering up a bit.

  Sleepering up a bit. She yawned. Noble knight up there drugged me.

  *You didn’t have to drink the cha.*

  *Ah well, keep your illusions. I thought I’d be polite.*

  What do you intend?

  My business.

  My world.

  So?

  Be more respectful of your elders, infant.

  Why?

  (chuckle)

  *That’s no answer.*

  You first.

  Why?

  I was here first.

  *Can’t argue that.*

  Well?

  My business.

  *We’ve been around that way once. Once is enough.*

  *He your boy? I don’t think so.*

  *You’re right.*

  Two great minds beating as one. How can I bear it?

  You, ancient child, are a saucy snip.

  Yeah. She giggled. A needle in the ass of authority.

  The Pomp of pomposity.

  Soulmate.

  *Not likely. I sigh with delight that you don’t know the location of my hindquarters.*

  *Oh, you have ‘em then?*

  *In a manner of speaking. I don’t offer them for your prodding.*

  *Keep it clean, I’m underage.*

  Under what age?

  Fourteen. Fourteen thousand. Take your pick.

  Why are you here?

  *Ah. Now that’s a question I’ve never heard answered satisfactorily. Why am I? Why is anything? Or is all this a dream? Are you a dream, O loudmouth forest, O Po’ Annutj?*

  (an indescribable sound like solidified irritation)

  Tell me why you want to know.

  (sigh, long and long, with prickles of annoyance in it) Enough of this nonsense. Because, ancient child, I want the Ajin off this world, I want him either dead or stopped. My friends suffer now, will suffer more, and in the end, this world will burn if he has his way. Parts of me will die beyond my power to repair and replace them. What grows between me and the soft folk here will die. I think that would be a shame, a loss of richness in the All.

  Yes. (a long pause while Shadith struggled with the sluggishness of her .brain, the drug tightening its hold on her) I came to pry two friends out of his claws. (pause) Hunters. They came to get him. (pause) He … no, not him … Kell … the Vryhh … set a trap, caught them. (pause) *Going after … no … that’s it. I get them, they get him.*

  The Senda who tended you is mine.

  *I wondered … I didn’t … why?*

  Liaison. Spy.

  (sleepy laughter) *That’s good gunk he has. One I owe you.*

  *There are others like him. They’ll know about you, help when they can.*

  Know? No.

  *Only that you’re mine.*

  *Not yours. Not anyone’s.*

  Quibble. Friend, then.

  All right.

  (feel of almost-maternal amusement and affection) *Go to sleep. That’s a good child.*

  Up yours.

  Keep it clean, ancient child. Remember my age.

  What age is that?

  Not half yours. Sleep. Sleep.

  How can I with you yelling in my head?

  Sleep. Sleep.

  *Good night, Po’. Go away, Po’.*

  (laughter fading into silence)

  Interesting, she thought, and drifted deeper into the drugged sleep.

  She woke to darkness and thought at first she’d slept through the day and into night again, then realized the boat was burbling along inside a cavern, plowing heavily against a powerful but sluggish current. She sat up, looked around, then shook Linfyar awake. Bending down to him, she whispered, “How big is this wormhole?”

  Linfyar rubbed at his nose, yawned. His ears quivered. He rolled out of his blankets and squatted beside her, listening intently. After a minute he said, “They’re using radar to find their way; I’m trying to read their beeps.” Another short silence. “Roof comes down close to the water ahead,” he murmured. “About twenty meters. Boat’ll just scrape by.” He wriggled uneasily. “Shadow, there’s things in the water.”

  “What things?”

  “Don’t know. Big things. Talking and making my ears hurt.”

  “Come here, imp. Don’t listen to them.”

  He curled his ears shut and climbed into her lap, sat with his face pressed into the shallow valley between her small breasts. She pulled a blanket up around them, then reached out and touched the things. Raw hunger. Fury. A force too primitive and diffuse for her to control. Far too deadly to challenge. “We sure don’t swim out of here, Linfy,” she murmured.

  Some shapeless sounds from him, a sleepy shift of arms and legs, then he was heavy against her, wholly relaxed, asleep again. The blackness closed down tighter. The boat slowed until it was making little headway against the current; she heard creaks and rasps where it was scraping against the rock.

  Then there was light ahead, blooming green and gold in water smooth as glass. She rubbed watering eyes and sighed with relief as the weight of stone lifted away.

  They drifted into a round lake inside high craggy walls. There were patches of lush greenery, but the cone of the ancient volcano was mostly heaps of mottled stone, slides of scree slanting from the precipitous walls. One of those slides jutted into the deep black water; after a moment she saw it was a camouflaged wharf with a slot where the boat could slip in and rest unseen from above. Beyond the wharf were more structures, massive stone buildings built up against the wall, camouflaged like the wharf by the sweeps of scree.

  The Ajin helped her to her feet and with smiling courtesy lifted her onto the dock, then stepped after her, leaving Linfyar to scramble up how he could. Poor old bigot, no use getting mod at you anymore, silly old fool, escorting your enemy into the heart of your power. He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her along the wharf and into the largest of the structures. The walls were not as thick as she’d expected, but these buildings weren’t meant to live through a bombing; that was the meaning of the camouflage. If the Pajunggs found this base, they’d flatten it, but a world was a huge place, even so small a part of it as a continent, and they didn’t have the tracers to locate him. Not yet. And they were terrified of the forest. No native intelligence here. Hah. What they told themselves so they wouldn’t have to go into the forest hunting it. She wondered about the other worlds the Pajunggs had colonized, what they’d found there and quietly destroyed. Respect for life and the rights of natives, all that was the luxury of settled peaceful lands long after those natives had either been assimilated or destroyed. Unless they had the power to resist cooptation. In the end that was what it came down to, the possession of power in one form or another. Where law didn’t exist, the survivors were those strong and smart enough to prevail. Kell and Aleytys, it was the same thing. Po’ Anuutj, the miners against the Pajunggs and, yes, the Ajin.

  The hand on her shoulder turned her away from the main corridor down the building and urged her down a side way that went out of the house into the living stone of the mountain. She thought about his loathing of Linfyar, who was recognizably of kindred stock, a handsome little faun with more charm than was good for him. What would the Ajin be like once he had complete authority over this world and came against the Po’ Annutj? They went back and back into the mountain until she had the feeling she walked on a surface precariously spread over a seething sink of molten stone; with a shrug of its shoulders the mountain could drop them into its heart. She shivered.

  The Ajin patted her shoulder. “Not much farther,” he said. “I want to keep you close to me, make sure you’re safe.”

  She did her awkward childish nod, but said nothing. Treating me like a kid, she thought, being the tough but gentle father. Hunh. I want a father like I want another head. She’d lived with Harskari far too long to relish acquiring another mentor, especially this condescending bag of air planning to use her and her gifts for his own purposes. I said it right, out there on the bay. Hollow man, only his needs to drive him, no real contact with anyone else. The rest of us are shadows cast on his desires. She thought about Perolat and Tjepa! She thought about the Ajin selling himself to Kell in return for support in his ambitions. I’d bet anything Kell built this place for him and stocked it too. Wonder where the trap is? Wonder what it is? Taggert, she told herself, I hope you know what you’re doing. Another Hunter in the trap. Would that bring Kell running? God, I hope not. I know when I’m out of my weight.

  The Ajin palmed open a door, urged her inside. A huge false window took up most of one wall, a viewscreen showing the mountainside with its immense trees, the solemn silent beauty of the forest, the sunlight streaming through occasional breaks in the canopy, bat-winged birds soaring and singing; forest sounds came through subdued and faintly magical. Bright hangings broke the chill of the black stone walls. The floor was dull metacrete, but a silk rug hid its ugliness, echoing the abstract patterns in the hangings. A black glass table with food steaming on black glass plates, cha in a pot covered by a quilted cozy. Steel-framed chairs with black leather seats and backs. A black velvet divan piled with brilliantly colored silk cushions. A cheerfully inelegant room decorated by someone with a liking for color and no pretensions to taste. The Ajin stepped aside to let Linfyar in, moved to the center of the room. “These will be your quarters, singer. Bedroom and fresher through there.” He gestured at a black velvet curtain between two of the hangings. “Rest and take care of your body’s needs. I will return to talk with you tomorrow. No need to worry about anything. No one will hurt you here. Just relax. I’ll explain everything soon.” He smiled at her, a warm beaming smile, his brown eyes twinkling with goodwill and appreciation, then made a rueful face, lifted a hand in an apologetic gesture. “The door will be locked—I’m afraid it’s necessary. For your protection, child, I promise you, that’s all. Some of the men here aren’t as gentle with women and children as I’d like.” A last smile and he left, the door closing behind him with a slight pneumatic hiss.

  Shadith looked around, raised her brows. Their gear was piled against the wall at the end of the divan. “Looks like we took the scenic route.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Private joke.”

  Linfyar twitched his ears, turned in a slow circle. In his hometongue he said, “Busy-busy, crawling with bugs.”

  “Man wouldn’t trust his own mother. Better not count too much on talking this way, my young furry friend. Your language is a variant out of a large family; might not know it, but you come from the cousin races and if their computer has translating capability, it won’t take them all that long to get a good idea what we’re saying. Besides, if they get curious enough and decide to stop being polite, all they really have to do is hook one of us to a psychprobe.”

  Linfyar shrugged, began moving about the room, his lips fluttering to read what was around him, his nose twitching, all his senses operating as he explored this new place. He followed his nose to the table, slid into one of the chairs. Switching languages, he said, “Not going to starve us, anyway. Mmm. I’m hungry.”

  Shadith chuckled. “Me too, imp. Be with you in a minute.” She left him sniffing at the dishes and pushed past the curtain.

  A bedroom with another screen tuned to the same image. She was grateful for those screens; they made the stone more bearable, though she suspected they were two-way viewers. She dragged her hand hard across the screen, made the glass squeal, grinned at the trees and birds she couldn’t touch. Voyeur, she thought, but didn’t say it. She circled the wide bed and went into the fresher. It was small and neat, with a flush toilet and a shower cabinet, a large mirror over a basin. She took care of the ache in her bladder, stripped to use the shower, annoyed that there was some fool somewhere watching her. She started to step into the shower, then frowned at the bandages on her arms and legs; she stripped them off and inspected the abraded flesh. Most of the red was gone. Cautiously she touched her head. No swelling, no soreness. Great gunk. Yeah, I owe you one, old Po’. Hate to wash it off, but I’m too grungy to stand myself any longer. She found a cake of soap with a pleasant herbal scent in a niche in the shower, laughed as she turned the water on and adjusted the temperature. VIP treatment. Looovely. But you walk eggshell-light. Shadow, you’re frosting on his cake; he can get along quite well without you if he has to.

  The water came hot and hard. She found herself singing, enjoying the feel of the spray, then of the soap as she spread lather over her body. She lingered awhile after the soap was rinsed off, letting the hot water beat against her back, but she was hungry, so she finally shut it off and stepped out.

  She scrubbed one of the thick nubbly towels over her body until she glowed, then wrapped herself in the toweling robe that hung on a hook beside the cabinet. She tied the belt and went strolling back into the sitting room, rubbing at her hair, humming the song she’d been singing.

  Linfyar was eating neatly but steadily from a plate heaped high with bits of meat and vegetables, washing down every other bite with a gulp of heavily sweetened cha. “You sound happy,” he said. He sniffed. “And you smell good.”

  “A change for the better, huh?” She filled her plate, settled into a chair across the table from him.

  Linfyar stopped chewing, put his fork down and rubbed at his nose. “You think maybe … um …” He shifted languages but was still careful in his choice of words. “What we’re looking for, you know … maybe it’s right here. Funny if that’s right, don’t you think?”