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  Dhal looked up. “I don’t know, Poco. I must have done something that frightened him.”

  “You had not started to heal him?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to try to do anything now?”

  Dhal took Poco’s hand and pulled her down beside him. Poco felt a tingle of happiness as their glances locked. How much she loved him. Did he know? she wondered. With his head filled with stories of the Ni-lach and his dreams of finding them, did he realize how important he had become to her?

  “There is no reason to put it off,” Dhal said, answering her question. “Either I can help him or I cannot. I think I’ll know once I’m inside.”

  Poco shook her head. “It still sounds strange to me when you speak of going inside another person’s body. Were you never afraid of becoming trapped, of losing your own identity?”

  “It isn’t like that, Poco. I told you before, it is more like slipping inside another set of clothes, where you can feel every wrinkle of material, every tight seam. When I am inside I can feel if there is anything wrong with the body, a hurt or an illness; and when I find it, I picture things as they should be, rather than as they are. Somehow my thoughts become a healing energy that kills disease and stimulates new cell growth in bone, blood, and muscle. Then, when everything is as it should be, I leave.”

  “You make it sound simple,” Poco said.

  “It is—for me.”

  “Perhaps, but I know for a fact that your healing is not accomplished without cost. You were weak for a day after healing Screech that one time, and when Saan Drambe stabbed you with his knife, you took four days to recover.”

  “So?”

  “So what happens if we have to move fast? There are rumors that the Sarissa plan to invade Port Sulta soon.”

  “We have been hearing those rumors ever since we arrived here.”

  “That is no reason to dismiss them, Dhal. If you try to heal Taav and end up flat on your back for days, you might well be putting us all in danger.”

  Dhal looked down at Taav. “Yes, I know,” he said.

  But Poco knew that if Dhal had set his mind on something, he would go through with it. “When do you start?” she asked.

  Dhal turned and smiled at her. “Thanks, Poco.”

  “For?”

  “Understanding.”

  Don’t I always, she thought. She looked down at Taav and for the first time noticed the bruises on his arms. Suddenly she saw something she had missed before.

  “Scales!” she cried softly. “Dhal, he is atich-ar, one of the scaled ones! They are said to be direct throwbacks to the first Ni, those who are supposed to have lived in water.”

  “Yes, I know,” Dhal said. “It means that he is full-blood Ni.”

  Atich-ar were rare among the Ni-lach, so rare that they were almost legendary. The scales were small, almost invisible from any distance. Poco reached out and gently laid her fingertips on Taav’s arm. His skin was not rough, as she had supposed it would be, nor was it as soft as her own; it was just different. His nose was straight, with very narrow nostrils; his lips were thin; his cheekbones were high. Winged eyebrows accented crystal-gray eyes that were so like Dhal’s.

  “He looks so vulnerable, Dhal. What will it be like for him? Will it hurt?”

  “I can dull the pain centers for most of the body, but for the mind itself I am not sure. Sometimes in order to feel the wrongness in a body, I must be able to feel its pain. I don’t want to hurt him, Poco, believe me.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” she asked.

  Dhal looked at Screech and Gi-arobi. “Screech, I want you to stay close, in case Taav wakes and becomes violent again; and Gi, you be our watch. If anyone comes this way, whistle.”

  “And me?” Poco asked.

  “Just stay close. If anything threatens us, you will have to try to wake me. It won’t be easy and you may not succeed. It will depend upon how far I am inside.”

  “What happens if I can’t reach you?”

  “Leave me or—”

  “No!”

  “—try to hide me. Screech can carry me and I am sure you can carry Taav. He is not very heavy.”

  “I don’t like this, Dhal,” Poco said. “I wish we could do this in a more protected place, perhaps somewhere inside the city gates. We could rent a room for a few days. We have to trade another piece of jewelry to pay for Taav anyway. We will have plenty left over.”

  “Poco, we are as safe here as we would be in any of the port inns. Here no one will ask questions or become curious about the company we keep. We have come far together, the four of us, and I don’t want us splitting up. I have seen enough of the Letsians to know that none of them would sell us a room if they knew we intended to share it with Screech and Gi.”

  Screech coughed softly, seeking Dhal’s attention. “If it is safer to heal the atich-ar in a protected room, go. Little Fur and I will stay here.”

  Dhal watched Screech’s hands carefully, for he was still in the process of learning the derkat sign language. He shook his head. “No, Screech. I want us to stay together. It is safer.”

  “Healer fears something?” Screech signed.

  “No.”

  Though Screech sat perfectly still, Poco saw the end of his tail rise and fall in a gesture she had come to recognize as impatience.

  “Is Healer afraid I will not look after Little Fur?” Screech signed.

  Gi-arobi stood at Dhal’s right shoulder, his glance darting from one speaker to the next. He answered before Dhal could. “Dhal trusting Screech. Knowing Big Fur is friend to Gi, but Dhal right. Staying together, us, is safer.”

  “I know you and Gi would be safe together, Screech,” Dhal added. “I trust you with his life and my own, but if Poco and I took Taav into the city and tried to heal him there, Poco would be alone to watch over us until I regained my strength.”

  Dhal glanced at Poco and smiled. “Not that I have any doubts that she could do that, but it would be a lonely vigil, and with Taav the way he is, I would like her to have your strength to call on.”

  Screech looked at Poco and saw her nod; then he turned back to Dhal and signed agreement. “Poco will not be alone.”

  After Screech boosted Gi up into the lower branches of a nearby aban tree, he returned to take a position opposite Dhal, the slumbering Taav between them.

  Poco sat to Dhal’s right and slightly behind, where she could feed the fire and keep an eye on Dhal at the same time.

  Dhal reached out and placed his left hand on Taav’s forehead over the scar; his right hand hovered over Taav’s abdomen. A moment later Dhal’s head dropped forward, his eyes closed.

  As the minutes passed, Poco traced each line of Dhal’s body, her gaze finally coming to rest on his hands. She had felt both the strength and the gentleness of those hands, but had yet to experience his healing touch, unless he had used it one of the times he had soothed away her fears.

  The Sarissa were fools to have made Dhal an enemy, she thought. The Ni-lach jewelry hidden at Val-hrodhur was nothing compared to Dhal’s gifts as Healer and Seeker, yet in their greed the Sarissa would have murdered Dhal as they had Haradan.

  Poco looked up to check on Gi-arobi, who sat perched on a branch overhead. The olvaar saw her and waved a furred hand. All was well with him. Poco then checked on Screech, but the derkat was watching Dhal work his healing magic and did not look up.

  Poco placed several small branches on the fire, then turned back to watch Dhal. She barely managed to suppress a grasp of wonder when she saw the aura of green, translucent light which surrounded Dhal’s hands and Taav’s head.

  Poco decided that when Dhal was finished, she would ask him more about his gift. Dhal spoke of the green aura as a manifestation of healing energy. In the back of her mind she wondered if such power was hereditary or a learned skill, one that others might be taught to use.

  The air cooled as night closed around them. All was still but for the sound of small insects fl
itting in and out of the campfire light. Poco studied Dhal’s back. She was growing worried; the green aura from Dhal’s hands had faded well over an hour before and still Dhal had not moved.

  Poco looked up and found Screech watching her.

  “Does the Healer sleep?” he signed.

  Poco leaned forward and touched Dhal’s shoulder. “Dhal, are you awake?” When he failed to respond, she shook him gently. “Dhal, are you all right?”

  Still there was no response.

  Poco moved to Dhal’s left and took his wrists. She heard him sigh deeply and mumble something as she pulled his hands away, then suddenly, he slumped to the side. She caught him before his shoulder hit the ground.

  Screech jumped over Taav and crouched next to Poco, ready to help.

  “Straighten his legs,” Poco said. “Let’s get him comfortable.”

  Quickly Poco checked Dhal’s breathing and heartbeat. Once satisfied that he was in no danger, she told Screech to get Gi-arobi.

  The anxious olvaar peered at Dhal’s relaxed features, then looked up and nodded. “Not worry. Dhal sleeping.”

  “How long will he sleep, Little Fur?” Screech signed.

  “Gi not knowing. Much energy lost in healing. We watch and keep Dhal safe now, yes.”

  “Gi, what about Taav?” Poco asked. “Should we try to wake him?”

  The olvaar looked down at the atich-ar. “Can try.”

  Poco sat back a few minutes later. She had tried everything she could think of, short of pricking Taav with a knife. “No luck,” she said. “All we can hope for is that one or both will wake sometime tonight or tomorrow. We will just have to stay close to them until they do. Screech, let’s lay them together over there near the tree. We can use the windbreak you and Dhal made the other day and form a shelter over them. The air feels like rain tonight.”

  Screech nodded and bent to pick up Dhal. A little while later they had both Taav and Dhal under shelter.

  Toward morning, Gi woke Poco, his soft whistle-click close to her right ear. They had been sharing two-hour watches and she had just fallen asleep.

  “What is it, Gi?” she asked, sitting up. Quickly she glanced around camp. A light mist had put their campfire out, but to the east the sky was beginning to show a haze of light.

  Poco felt Gi’s round, furred stomach press against her arm as he leaned close.

  “Taav moving,” he said. “Makes waking noises.”

  Poco kicked free of her blanket and crawled deeper under the shelter, where she could just make out the two blanketed forms. Gi was right. Taav was moving; his hands were clenching and unclenching and his head was rolling from side to side. The noises which escaped his lips were without meaning, unless they echoed pain or troubled thoughts.

  She listened to Taav for a few minutes, but there was no change. Gently she laid a hand on his forehead, smoothing back his tangled hair, then she began to sing a lullaby. Taav soon quieted.

  Poco continued to sing and watched as Taav’s hands relaxed. He may not understand what we say to him, she thought, but he does hear. It’s a step.

  She returned to her blanket and found Gi waiting for her. The olvaar tipped his head up as she sat. “Poco sing for Gi?” he asked.

  Fully awake and no longer sleepy, Poco pulled the blanket around her shoulders and silently offered Gi a place beside her. As the olvaar settled down, Poco dropped the blanket around him. She liked the feel of his soft fur and did not mind as he snuggled close. “What song would you like to hear?” she asked him.

  “Gi liking all songs,” he responded.

  “You are easy to please. All right, one song, just for you.”

  Poco sang “The Seven Words of Wisdom,” a song she had learned from the dockworker Trass, the half-blood Ni who had answered her questions and taught her the language of the Ni-lach.

  Orphaned at an early age Poco had lived a lonely, furtive life until meeting Trass. In those early days after the war, it had been dangerous to speak Ni or to be considered a Ni sympathizer. But Trass had provided her sanctuary on the lower tier of streets near the docks; had offered her his protection against the local authorities; and had taught her to use her voice to earn honest wages.

  Each time Poco sang “The Seven Words of Wisdom” she thought about Trass—and his death.

  When she finished the song, she lay back down. Gi’s whistled thank you helped to drive away sad thoughts of friends long dead. She had new friends who needed her; there was no sense in dwelling on the past.

  Chapter 3

  POCO WAS RESTLESS. TWO DAYS OF INACTIVITY WERE almost more than she could stand, and her growing worry over Dhal’s sleeping state made her all the more irritable.

  Poco crawled into the shelter and knelt beside Dhal. She spoke his name softly, but there was no response. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, then felt for the pulse at his throat. He seemed to be all right; still, she was worried. By holding him up, she and Screech had managed to get him to drink several times each day, but as yet he had not eaten anything, and if he did not eat soon, he would be weak for days.

  She looked at Dhal and Taav, lying side by side under one blanket. Their green hair, pale skin, and beardless faces left no doubt about their common ancestry.

  Poco leaned over and felt Taav’s hair. It was dry now. That morning she had clipped and washed it as best she could. She hoped that when he woke up he would not be angry; among the Ni-lach, long hair and the style in which it was worn usually symbolized age and rank.

  Taav moaned in his sleep and rolled onto his side, taking the blanket with him. Poco reached across Dhal and pulled back the blanket to cover them both once more.

  A little while later, Poco went to check on Gi-arobi, who had been on watch since early morning. She found him sitting on a branch in a nearby aban tree.

  “Poco wants?” he whistled, as she approached.

  “Nothing, Gi. I was just checking to see if all is well with you. Here,” she said, tossing him a half section of golden kansa fruit. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  “Gi always hungry,” he said as he caught the offering.

  Poco grinned. “Gi, that is an understatement.”

  Gi cocked his head to the side. “What meaning, under-stay-mint?”

  Poco laughed. “In this case it means a large truth that is spoken in the mildest of terms.”

  “Not understanding, Poco.”

  “Never mind, Gi. I am only teasing.”

  Gi popped the last piece of fruit into his mouth. “Dhal waking soon,” he said.

  “Is that a question, Gi, or a statement?”

  Gi made a thrumming noise in his throat, the olvaar’s form of laughter. “Is under-stay-mint, Poco. A truth, yes?”

  Poco shook her head, not exactly sure she understood this time. “Are you telling me that Dhal will wake soon?”

  “Yes,” Gi said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Gi knowing here,” he answered, patting his head.

  Poco smiled. “If you say so, Gi.” She had been too long around the olvaar not to trust what he said. If he said that Dhal would wake soon, he would; until then she would just have to be patient.

  Ver-draak was a green and sparsely populated world. Its twin suns, Ra-shun and Ra-gar, lighted the mint-green sky twenty-two out of thirty hours a day, creating lush jungle forests and green oceans of bush and grass.

  Late in the afternoon, Ra-gar was low in the western sky; her sister, Ra-shun was already lighting another part of the world. The patch of sunlight Poco had been watching had finally succumbed to shadows.

  After she checked on Dhal and Taav, Poco built a fire and fixed a cup of tea using some rayil leaves Dhal had gathered days before. She sat quietly by the fire, breathing in the tea’s spicy aroma and thinking about all that had happened during the months she had spent with Dhalvad. She thought about their run into the Mountains of the Lost; their finding the Ni city of Val-hrodhur; she remembered Haradan’s death, and Efan’s; an
d the treasure chests they had left behind.

  She set her tea aside and caught at the chain and pendant hanging from her neck. Of all the things she had brought out of Val-hrodhur, that one piece she liked the best. She could not have explained why. A seven-pointed star formed the outline of the pendant. On one side an intricate pattern of curving lines was carved around a pair of interlocking suns; on the other side of the pendant there were symbols which Poco was unable to decipher.

  As she turned the pendant over seeking a maker’s sign, she remembered that some pieces of Ni jewelry were functional rather than decorative. By accidentally activating the green fire stone within his ring, Dhal had discovered a doorway into the past. The fire stone, he had learned, was a shard of the Tamorlee, the great crystalline life form that was the Keeper of Ni-lach history. The energy of the Tamorlee enabled Dhal and other Seekers like him to teleport to other destinations with nothing but thought and their own inner vision to guide them.

  Poco traced the curving lines and noticed that they doubled back upon themselves in a pattern that drew the eyes to follow. She began to hum a favorite melody she had learned from Trass.

  Unconsciously her humming rose in tempo as she traced the pattern over and over. Suddenly she felt light-headed; then, between one breath and the next, she lost the pattern of the design and found herself surrounded by a gray mist, where dark blue shadows fought to push their way into her line of vision.

  At first the shadows had no meaning, then slowly they began to form into recognizable shapes. It took her a moment to realize that she was still singing, and that her voice seemed to influence the shadows.

  Like a child finding a new toy, she experimented with her voice. She watched the shadows grow tall and slender and weave and dance to her song. There were bird-shadows that circled and dipped, and spirals of darkness that grew smaller and smaller until they melted into nothing. The shadows changed again and again, flowing together to create scenes of draak and ships, of towering buildings and oddly shaped trees.

  Suddenly Poco realized that she was singing a song she had never heard before. The voice was hers, but the words and music came to her as if from someone else’s memory.