So heavy…his chest felt so heavy…like a great weight pressing down on him…
He didn’t understand the turbulent emotions that steamed and roiled within his chest, making it hard to draw a deep breath without it catching halfway down. His placid life had not prepared him for this.
He had been wronged — his parents had been wronged. Injustice. The concept had never occurred to him, and he had had no experience with it during his life. He had no injustices to draw on. For there was no justice or injustice in the forest, only the incessant struggle to go on living, taking what was needed and leaving what was not. Things tended to balance out that way. Carelessness was redeemed in pain and mishap, vigilance rewarded with safety and a full belly.
More stealthy images crept unbidden from the past as he sat there. He had managed to hold them at bay while going about the task of interring his parents' remains, but now that that was done and he was gazing at the cold, dead, empty piece of earth that had once held warmth and security for him, he began to remember hunting and swimming lessons from his hulking father, and sitting curled up at his mother's side at the mouth of the cave in the cool of the evening.
His chest began to heave as a low, broken moan of unplumbed sorrow and anguish escaped him. He began to scramble blindly down the cliffside, nearly losing his footing twice in his haste to reach the clearing.
Once there, he ran from one end to the other, sobbing and whimpering, frantically casting about for something to break, something to hurt, something to destroy. As he approached the garden area, he found one of the crude hoes his father had used for tilling. He grabbed it and scythed his way through the stalks of maize and other vegetables growing there. When that was in ruins, he raced back to the base of the cliff and picked up any stones that would fit into his hands and hurled them with rage-fueled ferocity at the rubble-choked mouth of the cave. Some caromed crazily off the pile, others cracked and shattered with the tremendous force of impact. Whining and grunting, he threw one after another until a number of his wounds reopened and his strength faded. Then he slumped to his knees, pressed his forehead against the ground, and released the sobs that echoed up from the very core of his being.
After a while, he was quiet. After a while, he could think again.
Another new concept for which he had only a name grew in his mind: revenge. Had his parents been killed for food by one of the large feline predators that roamed the forests, he would never have thought of retribution. That was the way things worked. That was existence in the wild. His parents would be dead — just as dead as they were now — but the balance would not have been disturbed.
The tery raised his head. Neither his mother nor his father had ever threatened or harmed a human; in fact, they had avoided any and all contact with them. Yet the soldiers had come and slaughtered them and left them to rot. Such an act was not part of the balance. It skewed everything, and nothing would be right again until the balance was restored.
The tery vowed to remember that captain's face.
He stood and surveyed the ruins of what had once been his home. He would cut all ties with the past now. From this day on, he was a fugitive tery and would stay with the fugitive humans he had met. His parents would be left behind, but he would not forget them.
Nor he would forget that captain's face.
At midday the tery started back. The psi-folk would have been on the move all day, so he traveled on an angle to his earlier path to intercept them. He was moving along the edge of an open field when something made him stop and crouch in the grass. The skin at the nape of his neck drew taut and all his nerve endings buzzed with alarm as he sniffed the air for a scent.
Something had alerted his danger sense — his muscles were tensed and ready to spring, his jaw was tight.
Why?
His gaze darted across the field and in among the shadows around the bordering trees, searching for movement, for the slightest hint of a threat.
Nothing.
Taking a few hesitant steps forward, he felt the sensation increase. Fear…dread…foreboding…they wormed into his brain and raced along his nerves. Yet he could find no tangible cause. Although his mind rebelled — There is nothing here to fear — his legs moved him two steps backward of their own accord. Something within him — deep within him — was warning him away from this place.
He crouched again and strained his vision into the shade at the bases of the nearby trees. Perhaps one of the big meat-eaters had a lair there and a subliminal effluvium of death and dung had carried toward him on the gentle breeze.
He saw nothing. Perhaps –
There. In the darkness between the boles of two large trees — something shimmered. Not something…not anything, really. Just an area in the shadows about the size of a large hut that shimmered and wavered as if seen through the heat of a summer day.
Keeping to the open field he made a slow semicircle, at all times staying low and maintaining his distance from the spot. It still shimmered, but he could see no more from the new angle and saw nothing particularly threatening there. Unique and beyond anything he had ever experienced in his short life, yes — but nothing overtly dangerous.
Why then did it terrify him so?
He decided to find out. Slowly, with one reluctant step after another, he forced himself to approach the spot. And with each advance the terror within him grew, gripping him tighter and tighter until he felt as if lengths of vine were coiling around his throat and chest, suffocating him. His heartbeat hammered in his ears like a madman on a drum; the air pressed thick and cold against him. A cloud of impending doom enveloped him until his legs refused to respond to his commands, until his resolve shattered into a thousand screaming fragments and he found himself running, gasping, clawing his way across the open field, away from the shimmering fear.
When he finally managed to bring himself to a halt, he found himself on the far side of the field. He slumped against a tree trunk, trembling and panting while his sweat-soaked fur dried in the breeze.
He had never known such fear. Even when the troopers had chased him and sliced him and he had been sure he was going to die, he had not been so afraid.
What hideous thing hides there?
He waited until his heart had resumed its normal rate and he was breathing easily again. Then he moved away into the trees. He still wanted to know what lay within the shimmering fear and determined someday to find out. Many odd things had been left behind in the world after the Great Sickness, and the shimmering fear was certainly one of the most bizarre. Perhaps he could move through the upper levels of the trees and look down on it from above. That might work…
But not today.
He was too tired and emotionally spent today. All he wanted right now was to find the psi-folk, eat something, and settle near their central fire for the night.
Keeping the sun to his left, the tery moved further into the trees. He had not gone far when he came across an isolated hut. It was deserted. He noticed a kiln off to the side, cold, with clay pots and trays piled all around it. He looked inside the hut — clean, with a pallet on the floor and a small stone fireplace in the corner.
He guessed this must be the home and workplace of the one who had found him after the troopers had had their sport. The man they called Tlad. The tery briefly debated whether or not to sit and wait for him to return, then decided against it. He owed the man a great deal more than gratitude. But how to show it? From listening to conversations between Adriel and some of the psi-folk, he gathered that this Tlad was a solitary sort who did not make friends easily and had little need for the company of other humans. He certainly would not want a tery around, then.
Better to leave now than impose himself on his rescuer.
The tery moved on through the forest, the only place where he truly seemed to belong.
As he continued toward the presumed location of the psi-folk, the physical and emotional stresses of the day began to take their toll. Entering a grassy copse, he stopped to rest. A shift in the breeze brought the human scent and the sound of low voices from not far ahead.
He rose and hurried forward, but stopped abruptly.
Wait.
It was too soon yet to be intercepting the psi-folk, and idle chatter was certainly not one of their traits. Silently he slithered along the ground to investigate.
A cluster of six humans rested in the shade as their mounts grazed nearby. Leather jerkins…steel helmets…
Troopers!
All his fatigue suddenly evaporated in a rush of blinding hatred. But he held his position. He knew his reserves were low, and even under optimum conditions the headlong rush his emotions demanded would have been suicidal.
Cautiously the tery circled them and continued on his way. His hour would come. He had only to wait. And besides…the captain was not among them.
He came upon the psi-people soon after. Too soon.
For some reason they had stopped their march early and were bustling about, setting up their camp. Adriel spotted him first.
"It's the tery!" she cried, leaping to her feet and almost upsetting the mixing bowl in her lap. "He's come back!"
The other Talents briefly looked up, then went back to their tasks as Adriel rushed forward, fell to her knees beside him, and threw her arms around his neck.
"You came back," she whispered as she hugged him. "They said you were gone for good but I knew you'd come back."
Pleasant as this was, the tery had no time for such a welcome. He had just realized that the probable line of march of the scouting party would lead it close to this site…so close that discovery would be unavoidable. The troopers numbered only six, so there was no danger of an attack; but should they be allowed to return to Kitru's keep with even a general idea of the whereabouts of the psi-folk, extermination would swiftly and surely follow. He had to warn them.
But how?