Adult:
From Chapter 2
Lusaar plodded through the Always Dark, listening for a sound of reprieve. The fifteen syndicmen who had accompanied him and his two friends from their home city, Coantra, had camped only six kilometers from Far Town. They should have overtaken this group by now to fight for Vinsen Alyain's release.
The two men, who carried the bulky, bright gas fronds, had moved a distance up the trail, leaving the wagon with its seven prisoners in a gloominess similar to Lusaar's thoughts. The creak of the axle grated at his nerves. He glowered when a guard hit the lead drayman to make the men increase their pace with the cumbersome wagon. Other guards strolled ahead or stood watching while the sweating, belabored workers struggled on the narrow trail. The incline to get onto this ridge was more acute than Syndic Pown suggested before he left them to return to the district's only city--two days travel down the plains.
Lusaar knew these draymen, young and strong though they were, couldn't continue this way. Decisively, he went to the wagon. "Ho!" he cried, quickly pulling the lever to set the brake. "Take a rest."
Two draymen apprentices hurried to put the stops they carried behind the back wheels. Lusaar unhooked a water skin and passed it to the leader of the eight men. Even in the dim light, sweat glistened on their pale brown limbs and darkened their poorly-made tunics and short pants. One man slumped down, pulling his harness partner with him.
"What do you think you're doing?" the guard leader demanded of Lusaar. The lamp carriers made their way back to the wagon, brightening the area. "Cyclones! Lord Wolkum's son is expecting us. He said to stop for nothing."
"If you don't like it, order some of your men to help move this wagon up the hill. These draymen will collapse if they don't get a break." Lusaar studied the guard, sensing his shock at the idea. "I thought not." The royal guard ranked at the top of the unskilled labor guilds, where draymen were just two steps above household chattel. "Dray leader. When your men are rested, we'll go on," Lusaar said to the man his age who commanded the workers.
"Aye, sir," was his only response.
But Lusaar imagined him thinking, A strange one, this Gursenni. Lusaar rubbed his forehead, not liking the imaginary scenes or thoughts that often developed, but he hadn't learned how to break himself of the habit. He had even imagined that girl Hunter back in Far Town had once asked something, and called out to him.
Far Town was the government name, he realized, while the people there called the place Herrethstede--a name Lusaar hadn't heard before. Herreth, like the person whose Recall that girl Hunter called up. Lusaar wondered if that amazing display had been arranged to impress him.
He glanced at the unfortunate prisoners and turned away to sit on the roadside. If only he could hear the steady tramping of footmen. The Living Cave might not be too far away. Lusaar shuddered at the thought of the place.
Lusaar had left Coantra imbued with the crusade to make Dynast Chabris the undisputed ruler of their dark land and to end practices such as this. Vinsen Alyain had agreed to supply the proof Chabris needed--evidence that a Talent and Recall could be inherited by females as well as males. A radical idea, but Lusaar had heard of it from too many sources to totally dismiss it. Then that outlandish girl had demonstrated the ability.
He sighed, another remembrance from Herrethstede coming to him: the mute guard's bloody knife, the girl hunter on the ground wide-eyed with shock. He could picture her long silvery hair unbound and sweeping over her shoulders as she slept.
Lusaar shook his head, disoriented. She wears her hair in braids, he insisted to himself. Thick braids rebelliously looped over her ears. She had thrust her hand to the cut. Blood formed a dark line on her pale skin; and the entourage had walked off with the land's best healer in shackles. Lusaar hoped the town's new healer was competent enough to be of help. Hopefully the cut had been shallow, tearing the skin and welling with blood. She held a defiant look, even then.
A wonder that one, Lusaar thought. Too bad she'll probably be sent to a guards' pleasure house to breed, her offspring used as chattel.
She will be paired before that happens, came a thought. Lusaar put his hand to his head, dismissing his sharp idea that the thought had come from Vinsen Alyain.
"Keep those fronds closer!" the guard leader called as the draymen stood. "We don't need anymore excuses for a slow down." He inclined his head sharply toward Lusaar. The yellow lights marked their way as the draymen strained at the wagon traces. Large stones on the path caused some stumbling, but the pace was considerably faster.
Lusaar stayed beside the wagon, walking between the globes attached to the fore and aft. The smell from the seven caged humans was pungent, but Lusaar had remained beside the wagon the entire trip, refusing to let these people be total outcasts. Three guards brought up the rear.
Where in cyclones are Lalann's syndicmen? Lusaar wondered.
"Primanson Gursenni." The hushed voice belonged to the healer. Lusaar wondered how the man knew his father's status as a Priman. "Your thoughts have surely been perceived. I'm prepared for the worst."
"What?" Lusaar tensed.
The mutes are telepaths, came an abnormal thought, like words sweeping to Lusaar's mind. He peered at the healer who stood with his fingers clenched on the bars. Lusaar glanced suspiciously to where the guards tramped along.
"Thank you for interceding for my ward. You did a great service," Alyain spoke real words.
"Your ward?" Lusaar put his attention to the trail.
"My mate and I took her in after her parents were killed."
"And her name again?" Lusaar asked, unable to deny the intrigue he felt for the girl.
"Dwinn Somuron," Vinsen said.
"Somuron."
It had been eight years since Lusaar learned about Kez Somuron's radical insistence of equality among guilds. The man had also advocated open exploration to locate another source of ore. The idea had appealed to Lusaar. Finding another metal source could advance technology and revive his family's little-used Talent of Tronics.
"It would also diminish the dynast's power," Alyain said as if they were in conversation.
Lusaar gritted his teeth, knowing the man was correct. Supplying metals was what the dynast's pilgrimage was all about. Only the dynast knew the location of the ore, and the amount of new material found was suppose to indicate the coming year's fortunes. The only smelter was in Vadlin Palace.
"Somuron is a male name," Lusaar said brusquely to change his heretic thoughts. "Your girl shouldn't go by that. What is her line?"
Vinsen Alyain hesitated. "She's a Stenard, but chose not to let her father's name and Talent become extinct. Much in the way Chabris chose to continue the Vadlin line, even though it drove your father from her bed."
Lusaar jerked toward the healer, amazed at his knowledge and affronted by the man's boldness. Stepping off the trail, he didn't follow until the wagon was several paces ahead.
Yes. He had been born of Chabris Vadlin. She should be called Chabris Leely dô Gursenni, but when her brother, Dynast Illin's only son, disappeared Illin asked her to move back to Rendef City. Lusaar had been thirteen years old and he remembered well his father's horror at the idea. There would have been no position for Krandil Gursenni in Rendef city. No title, except as Chabris's mate; no apprenticeship to a royal Tronics position. Krandil refused to move to Vadlin Palace where he would have been shamed. Yet the man was shamed anyway by Chabris leaving without him. Openly Krandil berated Chabris, and spoke disparagingly about the fact that she gave him only one child. Then was the added scandal of Chabris withdrawing from the pairing contract. It could be counted on one hand the number of times a woman had done such a thing. No matter that she was the dynast's spawn and her father had encouraged her to do this! Dynast Illin's female son, she was often called, while Krandil Gursenni insisted that Chabris was insane. Lusaar had no choice but to stay with his father where he belonged. Females had no property or title, and a son was-by law-his father's responsibility. Yet he couldn't deny his fascination for this woman who would defy law, who took her own father's name, and now went on to take his position as dynast.
That was what appealed to him about the girl Hunter. She designed her own path rather than shying to the expectations of others.
He glanced ahead at the wagon, recalling Alyain's other comment that he was resigned to the worst. Lusaar shuddered. It won't happen, he thought. Lalann's men will get here. It can't happen!