Patternmaster

rest of my story. By the way, are you checking wide for Clayarks? I’ve seen them in these hills.”

“Checking as widely as I can.” They were just getting into the low grassy hills that they had to cross to reach the ocean.

“All right. I wasn’t executed because Kai talked, bullied, and bribed some of the Housemasters of the sector council into voting to spare me. She didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know—just that the killing was an accident, that I was only days away from my transition and my full rights as an adult, that the man I killed should never have been assigned to me anyway. They knew all that, of course, but they were so outraged, and, I think, so ashamed, that I, technically still a child, had managed to kill one of them … well they were more after vengeance than justice. The lead wife of the man I killed was there to goad them on. Leal was there telling as little of the truth as he could because he knew he was really to blame for the man’s death.

“Kai got me off, but she couldn’t get me all the way off. Instead of killing me, they exiled me from the sector. They meant for the Clayarks to do their killing for them. Kai was supposed to take me to the sector border and leave me there. Instead, she took me to her House. She induced transition—just a few days early, but early nevertheless.”

Amber drew a ragged breath, remembering. “I swear I’d rather let the Clayarks get me than go through anything like that again. I kept trying to just die and let it be over, and she kept bringing

me back. Did I mention that she was a healer too? Lucky thing. Although I didn’t think so then. She dragged me through all of it—stripped away my childhood shield before I was ready to shed it. Left me mentally naked to absorb all the free-floating mental garbage within miles of me. I got other people’s agony, violent emotions, everything, until I could manage to form the voluntary shield that I wasn’t really ready to form yet. I almost killed her while she was trying to save me. I didn’t know what I was doing. And I turned out to be stronger than she was.

“She pulled me through. But that wasn’t enough. She had to prepare me to leave the sector—to use the abilities I barely knew I had. There wasn’t time to teach me or time to do anything but print me with her memories. She gave me her fifteen years of leading her House. She made me assimilate all of it, not just let it sit the way you did with most of your Jackman memories. It was like becoming part of her—getting a whole new past that was only a few years shorter than my real past.

“She made me eat and took away my weariness and healed the bruises and sprains I had gotten thrashing around during my transition. Then she gave me supplies, put me on a horse, and told me to run. I got out just ahead of the group of Housemasters that had finally—twelve hours too late—realized what was happening.”

Amber stopped talking and they rode along in silence for a while, urging the horses faster as they came to a stretch of level ground, then

slowing to climb another hill.

“She loved you,” said Teray finally.

“It was mutual. She almost lost her House because of me.”

“Only almost?”

“She would have if it hadn’t been for Michael. That’s where I knew him from. She had called for help from Forsyth when I was first charged. Michael was in our area on other business but he had Clayark trouble on his way to us.

“He arrived and looked at my memories—I was allowed to come back into the sector to be heard. He looked at the truths the Housemasters had ignored, then decided in Kai’s favor. He didn’t make them take me back, but at least he made them leave her alone.”

“It was too late anyway. You couldn’t have gone back to her then.”

“I know.”

“With you stronger than she is and possessing so much of her knowledge and experience … I don’t think she would have dared to take you back.”

“I’m glad she didn’t have to decide.”

Teray changed the subject abruptly. “I think I’ve spotted some Clayarks.” He hadn’t had to say it. She was already looking off in the direction of the Clayarks. They were not visible, but there was definitely a group of them ahead, moving toward

Teray and Amber. They were just beyond the next hill.

“Only a small group,” said Amber. “About twenty. They might go around the hill and pass us by.”

“Yes, and then they might notice our trail and follow us while one of them goes for reinforcements. Best to kill them.”

“All right. You take it.”

She opened to him as no one had since school, giving him access to and control over her mental strength. It was the way people who were close in the Pattern fought best. The way Joachim’s House fought, the way everyone fought in war when Rayal used the power that he held. But only Rayal could pull all the people together, funnel all their strength through his own mind, focus it on Clayarks anywhere from Forsyth itself to the northernmost Patternist sector. Lesser people grouped when they could with whomever they trusted not to try to make the control permanent.